Segwit requires 95% of miners to activate. Currently about 75% of hash power is controlled by a group of chinese miners/pools. This is about the % of hashing power that is missing for Segwit to activate.
Aware of how Segwit activation works, thanks. I'm speaking to the miners' motivations. They've been asking for a simple blocksize increase for quite some time. See the HK agreement if you don't get the politics.
Yes that's the issue here, the miners are playing politics by trying to flex their power. But no one is willing to play petty games. There's an obvious win for everyone sitting on the table ready to go. Political games will be ignored.
The part you're missing is that Bitcoin is totally fine if it never changed from how it is today. Anonymity will come via Tumblebit. Lightning network can already work even without segwit.
Segwit never getting activated may even be a good thing. It will show everyone that Bitcoin has crystalized and can never be changed via petty human emotion. This was always Bitcoin's true selling point and we may be about to demonstrate it.
Not at all. Like many in the space, I've had to consider and come to terms with the fact that this might be the best version of Bitcoin we have, forever.
But that's not politics being ignored- this is still a group of humans who couldn't come to an agreement after much politicking. That's politics being exhausted.
I do share your optimism that we have a system that can survive gridlock. It just won't fulfill much of its early promise.