There exact reasons are a point of contention. But a lot of people believe that they thought it was in their interest to keep the block size small because they

There exact reasons are a point of contention. But a lot of people believe that they thought it was in their interest to keep the block size small because they hold a business interest in companies who's business plan is to make money by selling so called "second layer" solutions. The direction of development is really controlled by a handful of people and they also have control of 3 of the historically important Bitcoin discussion forums so they were able to control the narrative for years and push out anyone who brought up contrarian opinions on the block size.