What I hope to see in community-funded projects

[Thinker]

@Yeti

But I think we have all learnt over the last 5 years or so is that a ‘build it and they will come’ strategy just doesn’t work and we can’t just keep building things to prove to each other what CKB can do.

So my personal criteria to support apps going forward is that they need to have a clear plan as to how they will generate real and substantial usage from both within and outside the existing CKB community.

I strongly agree with this view. That’s why I wanted to bring it out separately so more people in the community can see it and discuss it, and hopefully it can also serve as a reference for future DAO votes.

The “build it and they will come” mindset from the top down seems to have spread to ecosystem project teams. I don’t want ecosystem projects to keep operating under this kind of atmosphere. I’d like to see more project teams with ambition and real drive emerge.

Especially now, with the help of vibe coding, it feels like some teams are asking for funding before they’ve even figured out how they’re actually going to run their projects. Of course, having good ideas is a good thing. But when projects come to the community seeking funding, I hope to see two types:

1. Protocol layer projects.
These are open source and can be used by anyone, making them public resources for the community. Before there is enough application volume, they often can’t generate revenue, but they provide infrastructure that benefits ecosystem applications. Supporting these protocol-level projects for their early contributions is worthwhile.

2. Application projects.
Their main goal should be expanding the user base, highlighting their playability and marketing appeal. They can come to the community to find early users, and they can also seek funding. However, I think funding should be only part of the development process, not the entire goal. The project should ultimately aim for profitability, rather than simply completing development after receiving funding and then stopping — because application projects usually don’t leave much reusable value for the community. @zz_tovarishch I hope you can see it too.

[zz_tovarishch]

Fully agree that funding is a means, not an end. When DAO-related topics start dominating community discussion, that’s a signal worth paying attention to.

As DAO coordinator my role is process facilitation and information relay, not project evaluation. But I’ll bring this framework back to the Spark committee

[Yeti]

@Thinker

1. Protocol layer projects.
These are open source and can be used by anyone, making them public resources for the community. Before there is enough application volume, they often can’t generate revenue, but they provide infrastructure that benefits ecosystem applications. Supporting these protocol-level projects for their early contributions is worthwhile.

Thanks for separating the different types of projects, because I was thinking my post might not have been clear enough that I was talking specifically about app proposals.

It was my thoughts exactly that infrastructure and other projects like DAO 1.1 which are for the public good of the blockchain and community are different and should be held to a different standard.