Most people don't realize that if SegWit had gotten approved a few years ago, it would have essentially been a non-event and the market would have responded with a whimper
How would that have happened? Not only was there no segwit release a few years ago, there wasn't even any serious discussion of it.
You know what change would have avoided this entire clusterfuck? A simple increase in max block size. Any time up to the point where the 1MB limit started getting hit routinely.
If it was not SegWit or max block size those who want to seize power from Core would have found some other issue to bitch about and rally around.