Should consumer facing tools rely on public goods funding?

Hi frens,

Last week, the Optimism Foundation announced that upcoming RetroPGF will be multiple Retro Funding rounds, which exclude consumer facing tools and education initiatives.

Lefteris, serving as the founder of rotki (consumer facing tools grantee) and the citizen with voting power (badgeholder), expressed his anger and said, “The biggest part of our developer salaries comes from the OP we have received.” I can feel the pain.

In case you don’t know, RetroPGF has distributed tens of millions of OP tokens, and within a total of 850M OP tokens. OP token is $3.65 today, so that’s a significant allocation of funding.

A question came to me: Should consumer facing tools receive public goods funding? Sure why not, if it serves people’s interests. For example, Most forms of transportation are subsidized by governments. But should consumer facing tools heavily rely on public goods funding?

I’ve been developing “consumer-facing” public goods software, too, released under public domain, and I think deeply about that question.

Let’s break down the concepts of “consumer facing tools” and “public goods.” Consumer facing products typically incorporate various revenue streams, such as one-time purchase, subscription, advertising, or public goods funding. Which should we prioritize?

Public goods definition are never objective. Even the “The Revenue-Evil Curve”, a framework to prioritize public goods funding, is highly “context-dependent”. For example, Vitalik believed Wikipedia should fund itself “by just adding a few advertisements”. However, given that most ads today are targeted and promote consumerism, I disagree with this approach.

“Resource distribution always involves connections,” either directly with the customer, or with the public goods community and foundation. Sooner or later, we have to connect with round managers to ensure our project’s participation in the upcoming funding rounds. We have to connect with badge holders for receiving Retro Funding. We have to connect with donors to increase our matching funds. These are nothing new from the real world public goods resources, and I see the crypto world is moving towards that as it scales.

So here’s my current subjective opinion:

If we aim to continue improving the consumer facing tool “for the consumer,” to avoid “evil” from third parties, we should prioritize direct payments.

I rarely see government-supported consumer-facing apps or websites that are great to use, particularly in the early stage. They usually serve the public’s need for availability, and that’s the bottom line.

Eventually, consumers should realize that their money is either paid directly for products, indirectly through purchasing advertised products, or through government taxes. If something is great and free to the public, it’s often because someone else has paid the bill, but this could rapidly diminish in the future.

However, it all depends. Building a product is like making a sculpture along with your own mind, the contemporary aesthetics, and the whole team. Isn’t that beautiful?

Your friend,

Denken