What happened with the 737Max is that Boeing wanted to put larger, more powerful, more fuel efficient engines on their 737. The only problem was that the physical structure of the plane (the base layer protocol, in this case) couldn’t handle larger engines. The 737 has a relatively low ground clearance compared to competitors like the Airbus A320. Mounting the larger engines in the same position as previous 737s would cause them to hit the ground during takeoff and landing.
Instead of changing the protocol - the base, physical structure of the 737 itself - to safely allow for the new engines, what they did was a hack to try to bolt these new engines (think L2s) to work with the old 737 structure (protocol).
Boeing moved the engines forward and higher up on the wing. However, this gave the 737MAX a tendency to pitch up more during high angles of attack, increasing stall risk.
To correct for this they created flight control software to automatically push the plane’s nose down in certain situations to prevent stalls. This software relied on data from a single angle-of-attack sensor. There was no redundancy built in.
It was this faulty sensor that caused planes to go into a nosedive that the pilots (unfamiliar with how to override this overly complex software) couldn’t pull out of.
In its current state, with no added covenants or expressivity at the base layer, virtually all Bitcoin users will be forced to use bitcoin through some custodial arrangement (even if it is a collaborative custody model like Liquid or Fedimint).
You can think of these custodians as the sensor in the 737Max , where if they become faulty you lose everything.
And you can think of conservative, well-vetted covenants upgrade as redesigning and lengthening the landing gear (and making minor alterations to the wing and fuselage) to safely accommodate new engines.
Anyway, all of this to say that sometimes changing Bitcoin’s protocol is safer than not doing so. I believe this is one of those times.
quoting737 max engineers also argued their efficiency improvements were technically solid, well-vetted, and backward compatible. We all know what happened after years of development, testing and certification.
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Why risk adding new features and efficiency tweaks to the base layer when you can build on it?
For example: Silent Payments and Chaumian ecash projects are going to drastically improve Bitcoin’s reach and privacy without modifying and risking the base layer.