I wonder to what extent Core developers have become victims of a self-fulfilling prophesy.



I recall conversations with some of them in the past that expressed a belief that soon the feature set of Bitcoin would congeal, after which consensus protocol changes would be impossible. For this reason, they thought it was extremely important to get certain privacy improvements in place.



Someone in that mindset may very well see filibustering necessary changes as a way of taking them hostage to otherwise-beneficial features.



The act of carrying out this strategy, however, is what actually creates the conditions that supposedly made it necessary in the first place.