I'd been thinking too hi-falutin all these years. By its incentive structure, Bitcoin avoids control by local government whim, but it isn't something that sits outside the corporate-legal world we know, which binds every other trust, agent, and corporate entity in international law.
Lay down the protocol in international law as a set, unchangeable structure, do it properly and that is that. The protocol cannot be legally changed, and anything acting outside the basic rules of international law - by deviating from the rules, in breach of the Bitcoin contract - will never win out as it won't have any chance of corporate adoption (and at scale miners are big entities, easily seized).
After a few years, at scale, the economic desirability of stability ensures miners would never believe it is in their interest (even ignoring the dire legal consequences for a moment) to change the rules on which layers above have been built.
The problem of developers having ongoing control of the protocol is one of acting outside the law, in a "honeymoon" period before the wheels of justice catch up, and before scale and adoption and inurement by accrual of layers above (which is preempted by continual changes, a self-fulfilling prophesy) can set in.
Bitcoin solves this. You just have to take off the cypherpunk goggles to see.
https://craigwright.net/blog/law-regulation/on-decentralisation/
