A Little Context

"In most projects, the first system built is barely usable....Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow." - Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month

It's just a fact of software design that the first version runs too slow, lacks required features, and/or costs too much to operate. One solution is to throw it away.

With that in mind, there are varying levels of how much of the platform (if any) should be migrated to a completely fresh new design approach. For example, the current API design could be thrown away, but that would impact the entire ecosystem. On the other hand, just Hivemind could be thrown away, and barely any of the rest of the ecosystem would be impacted (though I would be sad).

As the most extreme variation, you mentioned a pitchfork before. Just for a little more context:

A pitchfork is when you restart the blockchain from block #1, then import things like public keys and set the balances, and abandon the old chain.

Actual Question

My question is, do you see a pitchfork as a last resort? Or is it just a tool to pick up if the time arrives? What circumstances would make pitchforking a certainty?

Edit: I want to also include what Hive account@timcliff said, that it might be OK to say "we don't know yet".

Update After Livestream: I believe my question was answered. In a nutshell, it sounds like a pitchfork is off the table in favor of expanding RocksDB. This is great news. And it makes a lot of sense from a scalability perspective.