> /Bitcoin is a good/bad example of this. The main bitcoin sub was long ago hijacked by a "pro-Blockstream" moderator who bans users and discussion of anything that does not tow the corporate line. So /BTC evolved to be an open discussion forum for all things Bitcoin.

I was there, and on Bitcoin talk forum back then; and while Theymos may have many misgivings, it was never what you described. Your 'Pro-Blockstream' narrative is really to say the community didn't accept the hardforks as the Bitcoin we wanted to use, they could exist, but to call it Bitcoin was a misnomer. It was a fork and not the main-chain/protocol/network that is known as Bitcoin.

I do miss the days when the community was focused on solving real problems with the tech like with Sean's Outpost and Satoshi Forest, or the crowdfunding for Humanitarian crises and Ukrainian Revolution causalities of war.

But it was never what you are saying it was, Roger Ver was always a tool and a self-aggrandizing idiot who didn't understand the tech at a very basic level and never did anything except out of self-interest within Bitcoin much less 'for the Community.' Just look at his vitriol and ignorance leading up to and in the aftermath of the Bcash hard fork and his limited understanding of blockchain size. Furthermore, look at the lack of volume on their Network to prove just how much of a failure his notions of what made Bitcoin 'successful' turned out to be. The guy was a joke, always was regardless of how many Bitcoin he had/has. Hell, Gmaxwell (a former memeber of Blockstream) after being endlessly attacked by the Bcashers helped them identify and solve a massive bug!

As for Satoshi, you should go to Bitcoin talk Forum and look up his 'don't kick the Hornets nest' thread regarding getting involved with circumventing Wikileak's Financial censorship. This was never 'Satoshi's project,' he created Bitcoin but it was always maintained and modified for the Community, who clearly disagreed with Satoshi's apprehension to solve REAL problems from the onset of what this technology was meant to do: bypass financial censorship.

I was there, I saw it happen and that's actually what made me take this technology serious; when the community could bypass the supposed 'leader's' wishes was incredible and that was what would allow the World to know about the heinous nature of the 5 Eyes Nation's Spying and the Intelligence Communities immense violation of private citizens Rights and the Privacy of the rest of the World via Wikileaks' releases and eventually Edward Snowden's NSA revelations. Proving the Community's intuition was correct to negate Satoshi and kick the hornet's nest anyway as a risk worth undertaking.

I dislike 99% of r/Bitcoin these days, its pointless memes and fake TA and posts about 'mooning' from people who otherwise have never really made any contributions to the Community beyond those kind of posts, but... it still has a few active members from the old days who are/were Coredevs, Entrepreneurs and Key members from the early days that I enjoy seeing/hearing from time to time. It's also a relatively good gauge of how adoption is going, inclusion usually means its original members usually become the minority if its gaining traction, and to be honest as the tech works as it should regardless, wide-spread adoption matters to me more than pointless battles and nitpicking over interpretations of 'what Satoshi meant' when he said this or that which was the main staple of discussion back then, too. Its why the USAF/Segwit took so damn long when we really should have been focused on LN and default privacy layers on the network.