Typically, new projects have been attributed to the desire of independent developers to improve certain networking aspects of Bitcoin. But not all projects have been and are successful. Bitcoin is a fairly conservative digital currency that is valued largely for its transparency, immutability and clear rules, so changes are often met with a lot of backlash.
What is a fork
Fork. That is, a hardfork actually creates a new blockchain based on the modified code of the original blockchain. This means that users who have accepted the new rules are members of a whole new network now. Sometimes (especially in the early days of cryptocurrencies) the word fork/hardfork was used to refer not to an offshoot of the original blockchain, but to a fundamentally new blockchain based on the Bitcoin program code. The cryptocurrency Lightcoin, for example, uses a modified Bitcoin source code at its core, and the Bitcoin Cash hardfork is a network offshoot of BTC with shared blocks