One of the challenges of the DAO/SPS proposal model is that proposal voters need to have a high degree of confidence that the project is worthwhile before voting yes on it. That is doubly complicated because the voter is evaluating both: 1) Would the project be valuable if it was done, and 2) is the proposer going to deliver the project. Plus, with the current distribution of Steem Power, some large voters will be needed to get any proposal over the "return proposal" level, but the large accounts may be reluctant to support proposals out of a desire to not be seen as "playing favorites" by picking and choosing who to support.
I was thinking about this and wondering if there might be an alternative model that might be more palatable: the "advance" model. In conventional book publishing publishers often give authors an "advance against royalties", so the author technically gets some small amount for each copy of the book sold, but is given a large payment up front and only starts getting paid the per-book rate after enough books have been sold that it equals the amount of the advance they've already been given. Because book publishing is a hit-based industry only very successful books tend to earn out their advance and get to the stage where per-book payments matter, but being able to get a nice check from the publisher helps the writer to be able to write for a living rather than relying on the fickle tastes of the book-buying public to be able to put food on their tables. Functionally it's kind of like transferring some money from the possible-future-world where the author is wildly successful to the version of themselves who needs money in the present.
What if there were DAO/SPS proposals that worked similarly: the creator has a proposal that gives them a steady income in SBDs, with the expectation that some fraction of SBDs that they earn via their activity on the chain (maybe even 100%) get paid back to the DAO until they've met the amount they got. Since at least some of the SBDs would be put back in the DAO there's less need to judge whether the project itself is valuable enough to be paid for with the DAO's funds (the SBDs that are paid back offset how much is being paid out), and it would be easier to police whether the proposal creator is doing what they said rather than needing to wait for some big deliverable (for example, if they get some big rewards on a post but don't send them to the DAO account that's a signal that they're not living up to their commitments and should have support withdrawn).
What do people think? Is this a good idea? Would the community support proposals structured like this? How about the big accounts that are currently a big factor in whether a proposal can get funding?
In principle, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to this, but there's a big challenge with trust. The person making the proposal and the nature of the proposal would matter a a lot.
Maybe it would be more palatable, especially to larger accounts, if structured with milestones so the developer gets a certain amount up-front and then additional advances are only paid after promised deliveries are met.
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The idea is to be less of a trust-challenge than the existing status quo. My perception is that the current barrier is so high that there is no flow in the economy. It seems to me that @the-gorilla is one of the more active and well-connected people in the community and it was still a significant lift for his proposal to get approved. I figure that someone like me would have zero shot in the current system.
Since the DAO can be used for any project I think we should be careful to not get too locked in on the idea that it's only for developers.
This is kind of how the proposal system already works -- it's paid out on a regular interval, but the big lift is getting it approved and then proposal voters mostly seem to have a set-it-and-forget-it attitude. In my mind the "lump sum" wasn't the key element of what I was suggesting, it's that the payment creates a floor to shield the creator from the unpredictability of the "per product" rewards.
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I'm not sure I understand this correctly although I do understand the book / music publishing model so hopefully I'm not off the mark with my thoughts...
I think the context of writing books and getting "paid in advance" works because authors need to live whilst writing - the equivalent model for an author, using the SPS approach, would be that the author gets this advance on a weekly interval (or hourly in the case of the DAO). Which would probably offer the publisher a bit more protection if the author quits or fails to deliver. From the publishers point of view, they'll do this to secure the services of a prominent author / musician and get themselves the exclusivity. Would Steemit need this exclusivity?
In the case of DAO projects, it's possible that the "proposer" would require a large, up-front lump-sum - whether that's to recruit a team, advertise or something else. Admittedly, this is still possible with a short-term, high-value proposal.
For me, this up-front model shifts all of the risk to the platform and away from the proposer - equivalent to a company paying a salary in advance, rather than in arrears. It's obviously safer for the company to do the latter, giving them more control.
So without some convincing, it would be a no-go in my opinion... assuming I've understood the concept.
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Yes.
IMO Steem isn't getting anybody "prominent". I think we should be focusing on ways to make this place viable for people willing to come here, because it is not today. (My not-so-hidden ulterior motive is to explore whether there's a way someone like me could get funding for anything, my impression is that I couldn't in the current environment.)
I didn't intend to put the focus on the idea of large up-front sums. I was trying to add the "DAO gets some of the creator's rewards back" onto the current "Creator gets funds from DAO" model.
This part is intrinsic to the DAO proposal model. The intention was to see if this was less 'risky' to the platform than the standard way of running a DAO proposal.
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I’d recommend speaking to steemchiller to see what appetite there is for your idea. If you have his trust and support, many of the big accounts will follow.
I think I understand the concept more now - it’s less from a developer/marketing perspective but more from a “prominent author” perspective. Where Steemit’s essentially contracting somebody they want to acquire with an up-front payment that is slowly recouped. Hence your reference to the book/music publishing industry.
I’d be inclined to say it’s more risky since the money’s already gone. Using my proposal as an example, if I down tools / leave the platform, the DAO can stop payments whereas if Steemit was recouping the same figure from author rewards, it would never retrieve them. If I stayed and had repaid my debt, the platform would have to keep taking a cut to make their risk / change of approach worthwhile… much like a publisher owns the rights to a novel / album and pays the author / artist royalties. Then you could argue that the author would be better of reinventing themselves with a different username. I’m confusing myself now but hopefully my thoughts make sense.
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No, it's from a "proposals are unlikely to be approved today, what could increase the appeal of a proposal?" perspective.
No, please don't get hung up on this "up-front payment" thing, that's not what I'm talking about. (Also, if we're hypothetically talking about funding writing rather than code development the output of the writer is much more likely to be showing up on the chain in a way that can be evaluated on an ongoing basis than a coding project where the developer can plausibly claim to be doing things but not be ready to release the code yet).
No, it's the same. If you disappear you keep the money and never provide the deliverables. If the hypothetical person running a proposal where they promise to do something and also pay some money to the DAO disappears they keep the money and never provide the deliverables. There is no way that "plain vanilla proposal + pay $X to the DAO" is more risky than "plain vanilla proposal", even in the worst case scenario where X is 0.
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