> Project direction controlled entirely by core devs and the centralised exchanges that bless their output as "bitcoin" regardless of the fact it directly contradicts the original consensus mechanism for the project and the changes implemented by said devs fundamentally broke the utility of the project.
Core devs and exchanges do not entirely control the project direction. Non-backwards compatible changes cannot be made to Bitcoin without the miners AND node operators adopting the new client. It takes the cooperation of the devs, miners, and node operators to make a hard fork. "The Blocksize War" by Jonathan Bier documents a bunch of failed hard fork attempts that were backed by a good number of devs, large miners, and large exchanges. They failed because the node operators were not on board.
Core devs and exchanges do not entirely control the project direction. Non-backwards compatible changes cannot be made to Bitcoin without the miners AND node operators adopting the new client. It takes the cooperation of the devs, miners, and node operators to make a hard fork. "The Blocksize War" by Jonathan Bier documents a bunch of failed hard fork attempts that were backed by a good number of devs, large miners, and large exchanges. They failed because the node operators were not on board.