Gavin being silenced is just a tip of the iceberg out of the continual banning and censorship of people discussing ideas around scaling Bitcoin Core chain since 2016. Most of the folks have left for other projects since then and all BTC is left is as a tether propped exchange pair while merchants give up on accepting BTC (thanks RBF too).

Bitcoin Cash on the other hand has been gaining merchant acceptance and I've enjoyed using BCH same like I did enjoy using BTC since 2012. The honeybadger of P2P electronic cash is truly unstoppable.