Sources would be nice, but I don't have the time to dig through the mailing lists for quotes from developers. To be fair, those claiming that Core is conspirin

Sources would be nice, but I don't have the time to dig through the mailing lists for quotes from developers. To be fair, those claiming that Core is conspiring to move transactions off-chain would also need to cite sources. But quotes from developers are not particularly interesting anyway. What's far more interesting is what the Core developers have actually accomplished. Actions speak louder than words. They released SegWit which _is_ a 2MB upgrade to blocksize, as a softfork. It's exactly what the community wanted at the time (2MB), without any of the downsides (hardforking). In addition to that, it increased transaction efficiency, fixed bugs, and enhanced the protocol. SegWit is a thoughtfully designed protocol upgrade that accomplishes an order of magnitude more than any "upgrade" proposed by any of the alternative clients (Bitcoin-XT, Bitcoin Unlimited, and now SegWit2X). Post-SegWit the developers are already looking at Schnorr signatures to further increase throughput. They've worked tirelessly to optimize signature verification times and improve the efficiency of the P2P protocol. Why would they make all those efficiency improvements if their "evil plan" was to move everyone over to a lighting network? EDIT: To be clear, yes I realize not providing sources is a total cop out :P But not everyone has limitless time to peruse the mailing lists for quotes. I just try to provide my best understanding of things, given my experience working with Bitcoin and keeping eyes on the community and ecosystem.