In a nutshell: The taking of segwit and ethics of negotiating with terrorists

[harrymmmm]

Now that segwit is inevitable, the story can be told:
1) core naively entrusted custody of poor lil' segwit to miners
2) miners held segwit hostage demanding a hard fork to bigger blocks
3) hostage negotiator teams tried for many months to secure the release of segwit, but were unsuccessful (probably because the stated demands were not genuine; a majority miner knew segwit would ruin his profits from covert asicboost and really just wanted to delay as long as possible)
4) once the motivation behind the demands became public, the miners were looking for a face-saving backdown. A new negotiator team acceded to all demands - negotiated segwit to be activated first, then bigger blocks later via a hard fork. Miners agreed. Both sides signed an agreement to that effect.

The ethical 'problem' now: when a negotiating team accedes to demands under duress like this, is the team obliged to keep their promises?
Of course not. I hope they don't.

edit: changed 'everyone' to 'both sides' to make it clear that core was not in the agreement.

[aesma]

Core never accepted.

[harrymmmm]

Core never accepted.

To their credit

I guess I could have made 'Everyone signed an agreement to that effect.' clearer.
edited OP to change 'everyone' to 'both sides'

[aesma]

Most people following the saga know that there was never a consensus about 2X. A majority for it yes, but not a consensus. If the choice is following people with untested 2X code in a hard fork, or staying with core, we don't know if there would still be a majority for the fork.

[harrymmmm]

Most people following the saga know that there was never a consensus about 2X. A majority for it yes, but not a consensus. If the choice is following people with untested 2X code in a hard fork, or staying with core, we don't know if there would still be a majority for the fork.

Not that I disagree, but your reply seems unrelated to my thesis.

My point was that the whole thing can be framed as in the OP. Then ethically and morally there's no reason to follow through with the agreement you've signed under duress.
Even politically (to maintain your reputation as someone who keeps his word, for example), there's a face-saving way out by pointing to the duress.

I doubt these companies saw themselves as being blackmailed, but they actually were (in an arguably extreme definition of the word). Once they point to the duress, they need not feel obliged to keep their agreement.