In Roger's book, he claims that their first goal was to prevent Bitcoin from gaining too much traction before they could counter with their own digital money movements such as Venmo. It was a 2 part plan to ensure Bitcoin adoption didn't take off, while increasing the ability to use fiat digitally and seamlessly.

Part 1, ramp up the ability to send fiat money over phone apps. Remove the friction to send fiat.

Part 2, stop the institutional usage of Bitcoin as a way to move money, at least until they've finished development of Part 1.

Ultimately, this doesn't matter, and I think that's your point. Who cares about the details... BTC wins in every scenario, right?

The problem comes in when it becomes clear that they succeeded. Perhaps without their influence, the community would have figured out a better solution. For example, a small block size increase, followed by a long term L2 plan. Lightning with 6MB blocks would probably be the perfect risk/reward play. But LN on 2MB is tough.

I'm playing devil's advocate, though. I don't think any of us can decide to increase the blocksize. That's the whole point.... who has the power to decide? No one, and that's what makes Bitcoin special.

However, I think it's probably true that Satoshi did not mean to keep the 1MB block size. He hoped we would increase it. Increasing it around 2016 would have been perfect to help maintain momentum of adoption. Ossifying after that, and moving to layer 2's would be the correct choice. I'm afraid the central banks applied their influence to ensure we never increased the block size..... especially when they didn't have their shit, like Venmo, in place yet.