Sorry somehow I deleted my other post when editing

Thanks for your reply, it helps me think things through.. Here are some thoughts.

The node and the economic demand aren't separate actors.

I'm arguing they are separate. Suppose Coinbase shut down their node tomorrow and read a block explorer instead. Same demand, same customers, same ability to reject payments, same leverage over which rules you and I run. Nothing about their economic weight changes. The only thing they lose is their own protection (ie verification). If the leverage survives turning the node off, the leverage was never in the node.

It is signalled by being willing to trade for coins.

Willingness to trade signals demand for the emergent ledger, the venue where coins move. I say emergent because although each individual node derives the ledger, the venue emerges from every node arriving at the same result independently. The nodes agree in what they derived, it isn't an aggregation of economic weight.

But the energy analogy actually works the other way. Accumulated proof of work is read by the protocol: every node measures chainwork and uses it to select the best chain. Proof of work leaves a trace but demand leaves no trace anywhere in validation. Yes, demand makes the system work, but demand exists between people, and the emergent ledger is what they demand. It enters the protocol nowhere.

You don't list rejecting payments as one of the methods, but it is hugely important.

Rejecting a payment doesn't require a node. Merchants do it through custodians and explorers. When I refuse a payment, and when Coinbase does it, the mechanism is identical: it's a property of being someone others want to trade with, not of the software. What the node adds is self-verification as opposed to trusted. The node protects the actor, it doesn't project their weight.

An economic node isn't defined by how many coins they have, it is defined by how many coins they want.

Demand determines which ledger is worth having. It doesn't alter what any node computes. Economic actors who run nodes certainly exist, and their demand shapes which software people choose to run. What doesn't exist is a node whose validation carries more weight than another's. If Coinbase changed their rules and no one followed, they wouldn't take the ledger with them; they'd simply compute themselves out of the venue their demand depends on.

Thanks again.

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I understand restricting the rules can be framed as excluding certain types of behaviour. But its a bit more nuanced in terms of neutrality. The network will still be neutral when processing within the newer and narrower rules (proposed by BIP110). But there will always be some kind of restrictions inherent in the protocol design -- obviously even now not any arbitrary data of any nature of any size can be 'processed' by the network.

Unity emerges from the complex interaction of nodes (and the software the owner chooses to run), developers, miners, users. Whether the new narrower rules eventuate or not, Bitcoin will remain and the unity of the network will reveal itself. Note unity doesn't mean any individual receives his desired outcome, it means an emergent order that everyone continues to works in line with.

Just some thoughts your comment prompted.

I'll give it ago, probably revealing my ignorance.

The spam-debate is said to be related to PoW. But, PoW has one crucial role, not related to spam (from my perspective). It simply coordinates the longest chain--nothing more. Of course blocks need to be in consensus to be included; so the next mined block is held to consensus by the node runners. A miner-node could submit their "proof of work" on a non-consensus block, but it will not be included.

Next, other protocols are said to have a centralizing effect because of the use of "social consensus". In the case of email, the protocol is decentralized; there are decentralized approaches to dealing with spam, I know people who run their own server without problems. Users choosing a walled-garden such as gmail, and gmail being hostile seems to be one of the bigger problems. I'm not sure where the centralizing effect comes from, likely users choosing walled gardens for connivence (?). If bitcoin had a walled-garden, maybe we could have a spam-free chain! But I am not sure it was the fault of "social consensus". If we had a "social consensus" to reject centralizing forces, we may had better systems/protocols.

I guess the argument is that fees are the spam mitigation (as compared to email which does not have fees). There have mostly always been(?) been >0 sat/vB fees. We have mostly always had spam.

The question is, how do we truly reject any centralizing force? There is a complex set of motivations and incentives. Fiat addiction breeds centralization.

For point 1, how do you think 'blank check' funding can be prevented?