[Bitcoin-development] Roadmap to getting users onto SPV clients

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 5:44 PM, Alan Reiner <etotheipi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Greg's point looks like it's veering towards "we don't want to grow
> the network unless we're going to get more full nodes out of it."

No…

There is no fundamental completion between taking what actions we can
to maximize the decentralization of the network and making the
software maximally friendly and painless to get started with and use.
It's possible— not even deep rocket science— to create software that
accommodates both.

And because of this, I don't think it's acceptable to promote
solutions which may endanger the decentralization that makes the
system worthwhile in the first place.  If the current experience is so
poor that you'd even consider talking about promoting directions which
reduce its robustness then thats evidence that it would be worth
finding more resources to make the experience better without doing
anything the that reduces the model, even if you've got an argument
that maybe we can get away with it.  If there isn't interest in
putting in more resources to make these improvements then maybe the
issue isn't as bad as we think it is?

> I think it is very much in everyone's interest here to encourage new users to start "using" Bitcoin, even if they don't "support" it.

Absolutely— and yet that has nothing to do with promoting software to
users which only consumes without directly contributing and which
doesn't even have the capability to do so even if the user wants to
(or much less, is indifferent).