Though you’re preaching to the choir, I say amen to that.
Speaking of burning funds; when I spent almost a month designing a $5M community project which was specifically for our community, in which 100% of the funds were recoupable, 30% of the funds went back to the DAO so we could fund more worthy projects like ThankApe, GwG grants, OtherPage etc. though widely supported (publicly and privately) some balked at the price tag. Still, I stuck with it, put a new collab team together etc. because I felt that we needed more than Discourse and Discord - an online town square we could call our own, where we could expand our community reach etc. Eventually, I sent it through the BB on Aug 9th and withdrew it from the DAO on Aug 14th. At the BB, after several calls by myself, my team etc with the BB primaries and others, we faced the same challenges; only this time it was about how a $5M project was a large chunk of the $60M year-1 BB funding, how due to the falling token price it now cost about $8.35M, how it was too big, could we break it up, the MMO platform part competes (lol) with Otherside, wen token? etc.
Mostly, few actually understood the 37-page ACE proposal because this being Web3, short-term gains are far more important. So we made an ACE For Dummies deck.
So, frustrated, a month later on Sept 9th, on discussions with the project advisors which I had put together, we withdrew the original from BB and replaced it with a pared down white label yearly license, non-exclusive proposal which could be deployed on any chain instead of being a 2 yr ApeChain exclusive as was originally intended. By signing up with more than one chain (of which the team is now talking with 3 interested ones), we made it possible to split and amortize the $5M (we simply can’t build it for less) price tag to the detriment of an exclusive, lucrative rev share, single smaller MMO world etc.
Subsequently, due to other reports from other devs about 'not knowing wth was going on at BB’ - the same questions we were having - I wrote a thread which, much like these three proposals about the WGs, was designed to get clarity, answers etc. which we weren’t getting directly. Shockingly (not really) nobody has thus far saw fit to respond to it. So, now we have a $100M fund carve out with the usual lacking accountability and transparency.
The point being made here is that, aside from personal experiences, at every corner and in every aspect, the DAO lacks the accountability and transparency befitting an org that’s destined for prosperity. Yet still, some wonder how we went from a $1.4B treasure straight into the negative - in under 2 years. Amid all that, yet still some wonder why very few care about the DAO.
To me, it’s sad that very few who are active in the DAO actually do speak up. Mostly it’s out of fear of retribution (you never know when you would need to have to pander in order to pass an AIP) as well as not wanting to stand out. And while judging by the behind-the-scenes discussions they tend to voice opinions, that does nothing but make it seem as if it’s just us - the usual loud voices - who keep clamoring about the same things over and over. e.g. I was in a BotB Spaces last Sat when James (Moca) said something akin to “we complain about the same things over two years”. The irony wasn’t lost on me because the thing is that people here know that you can complain until blue in the face and nothing is likely to change because we lack the tools and mechanics with which to enforce transparency and accountability here in the DAO.
As I mentioned in this post, this DAO, like the treasury, token etc. if things don’t change, are all destined to continue along the fail track because mostly few actually care about the DAO. All the vocal and loud nonsense machines are on X where they’re usually to be found virtue signaling. They don’t actually care about the core community here in the DAO or they would be more active in their participation in a bid to help the community prosper.
The bottom line is that we can write all we want, but without accountability and transparency, it’s all for naught and to the detriment of the DAO. And as these things go, when the dust settles, all we would have is the historical record of having said something - to no avail.