How Ready Are We For a Decentralized Fund?

Before Hive and its Development Fund, there was Steem Proposal System.

Technically, nothing changed between the two yet, apart of the name and the total/daily amount of HBD now available on HDF, due to the addition of steemit stake, mainly.

While there were discussions every once in a while about funding via SPS, then there was Steemit Inc., which, while playing in a decentralized ecosystem, it was a regular private company, with a CEO, and hierarchical structure and decisions being taking from the top down. They did most of the work at the blockchain level, and while people were constantly displeased with their delivery, at the same time nobody could really ask them how they spent "their" money.

We all saw how Steemit failed, mostly due to poor leadership.

Now there's no Steemit Inc for the world outside to mistake with Hive. But the world is still looking for the alpha dog. Thus, the recurring questions in the AMAs with exchanges: "Do you have a CEO?".

We have a larger development fund and a number of developers and not only working at various levels, in teams or individually, and looking to get funded for their work.

As you probably know, HDF works like this:

• someone publishes a proposal, asking for funding
• stakeholders read the proposal and currently have only two options: vote for it or don't vote for it. Actually there is a third option, to vote for the return proposal of gtg, to raise the bar of funding for any proposal.
• if the proposal receives enough votes (stake wise), it receives funding based on the requested amount, every hour, until it expires or until it drops below the return proposal threshold

There are many ways HDF system can be improved, and I've seen it has been one of the main points in the last bi-weekly meeting of developers on Hive.

But one thing there will always be a point of debate will be price.

HDF is not really a market, you can't choose the best solution for you between two or more alternatives. Not that it isn't possible to co-exist competing proposals, but when the number of competent developers interested in Hive with experience with the technologies behind it is relatively low, it's unlikely they will compete against each other, especially since there are enough things to do for everyone.

There is of course the tendency for content creators to compare the amount a proposal beneficiary would receive daily on his/her proposal and the amount the content creator makes via posting and curating from the reward pool. And they are likely to feel underappreciated, if they look at it this way.

To be honest, I have to disagree on this one, especially if the proposal being funded has deep ramifications or long term benefits. You simply shouldn't compare them, because they are completely different things. They are funded via different sources too. Unless someone with a funded proposal also posts and chooses to receive rewards as well, in which case they enter the content creators territory.

Even comparing with your national average wage may not be the best idea, because in some countries you can live a month with what in other countries can make in an hour, but life expenses are also different.

But if you are a great coder living in a country with a lower national average wage, this could be your opportunity to create smaller proposals for useful stuff and hope to get them funded by asking for a low price. Quality matters though, it would be a great idea, in my opinion, to try and do some work and show it to the community before asking for funding, so that people see they won't waste funds on you.

Back to the central point of this post. There is a responsibility when you are highly regarded in the community and set prices on your proposals. Just realize that your proposals will likely pass and that you are likely setting price levels for others to follow.

Without an account's eye to question every number (hmm, is he/she qualified to do so? who is?) we may dry up the DHF before it actually starts to show up its true potential.

I'm also inclined to cheer development, but accountants (or rather those who look at the past data and identify future trends) are there for a reason.

Can community be the "accountant"? Hard to say. Certain people in the community can surely put together serious analysis, but community as a whole... still has issues fairly distributing rewards from the pool. So, the collective mind is still learning, growing, I guess.

It still means that when community starts to heat up on a subject, things are not as they should be, and can and should be improved.