Do the DHF funded developers justify their funding?

in #hive6 months ago

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I have been talking to a number of investors on Hive that closely follow the current state of the DHF that have been critical of some things that are ongoing when it comes to developer work.

As someone that is a part of the community and not a very technical guy I have no way to vet if any of what they are saying is true or not. I have commited a lot of work to Hive and done it all for free, which I continue to do so, so in a way these criticisms can be concerning to me.

I can understand if a project doesnt succeed or things dont go the way they should but I don't agree with anyone trying to take advantage.
I dont know if that is the case right now, but in the past we had developers, one I remember, like Netouso, that took tens of thousands of dollars from the DHF and bragged how he was sitting on his ass all day and not delivering much.
Many other developers got really mad about it.

I very much hope that is not the case nowadays because I know many of these devs and some are the best people I have ever met.

So I would really like, if there are any Hive developers willing to speak up and maybe look through Gitlab commits, what certain developers delivered and see if any of the current active proposal makers are taking in observably more money than they should for the work they do.
Best case they simply increase their work effectiveness.

Because some silent critics have been making claims that we are paying 3-10x what we should be paying for some developers.

Does the unavailability of developers willing to do the work justify that kind of spending if it is indeed true?
Is there any merit to those claims or are they completely unsubstantiated?

Would it be possible to have developers on Hive to keep check and hold each other accountable if something like that happens?
I know people dislike conflict but even if any of that leads to increased productivity I think that would be beneficial to everyone.

So ill ping a few people I trust to know a lot more than I do so they can maybe shed some light on this hopefully, if they are willing to explain their view on things. @arcange, @crimsonclad, @blocktrades, @dalz ...
That applies to anyone down on the funded lists below. If anyone is willing to chip in.
I think consistency of github commits are a measure for work done in some cases.

I fully understand that most of these proposals list the things they do in updates but what Im looking for is seeing what other devs think that are doing observations themselves.

Ill list the current developers receiving money from the DHF and please dont assume Im putting blame on any of them. I vote some of their proposals myself:

@ecency
@peakd
@martibis
@actifit
@dbuzz
@keychain
@spknetwork
@hivesql
@disregardfiat
@howo
@hiveauth
@brianoflondon
@vsc.network

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Hey @lordbutterfly,

Thank you for raising a very interesting topic and approaching it in such a friendly manner, since many would take extremes with DHF, either completely with or completely against.
I'll respond here as a dev who's been in the industry for 20+ years, but also as the main guys behind Acitifit, particularly as we are getting funded at the moment via DHF.

  • First and foremost, yes i agree there are many great devs around currently working and helping out grow hive and ecosystem. We are proud to (hopefully be considered) as part of such devs.
  • Second, in terms of active DHF proposals, our perspective towards tracking whether the proposal is justified or not, is based on the value proposition of the DHF proposal itself and whether it meets its objectives or not. This can be tackled via a few basic angles:
    • one: Is the project providing continuous updates? are they relevant to the initial proposal and the overall big picture?
    • two: If the project is open source (which we hope they are), are they making continuous and consistent commits/PRs to their projects? is the development really happening?
    • three: Is the payment requested justified considering the size of the team and the effort required?

There has unfortunately been abuse in the past as you highlighted, yet we believe a lot of great proposals are currently funded which are bringing value to Hive. We would like to comment a bit about our own proposal for transparency, in light of our perspectives above, particularly as I noticed a comment by @bitcoinflood below:

  • In terms of updates, we have been giving out continuous, weekly or monthly updates on all our Actifit work, including dev or marketing, even before our proposal got funded.

  • Point two which is github commits, we have been completely open source since day one, and have been very much consistent in our work via github where our project resides. Below is a screenshot of our commits throughout last year for further transparency (note that those do not include the iOS updates as our dev was pushing updates to a private repo, we will push those out publicly soon)
    image.png

  • In terms of the payment being justified, we do believe our ask is pretty much on the lower end, considering how much devs get normally paid and the cost we have at hand. Our Acitift team is currently at around 12 resources. Our work is only partially funded by DHF, as we requested 230 HBD daily, otherwise we would have asked for much higher numbers. Our DHF clearly states we run infrastructure for hive, hive-engine, 3speak, and many other hive collabs amounting up to 20+ servers. So the funding we have currently coming via DHF helps us increase our dev capacity, cover some of our cost, and increase our marketing and social effort. You probably are aware Actifit has been around for 5+ years, and this year was the first to have requested for some DHF funding, as we wanted the assistance to grow while avoiding the traditional VC route, and the best way was leveraging our DHF decentralized route, especially that Actifit has expanded its focus not only to provide fitness-focused dapp service, but to cover further collabs across hive and provide a full front end and infrastructure service to help our whole ecosystem grow. Our DHF proposal and updates throughout the year are clear regarding this.

So in a nutshell, we believe those 3 perspectives can be quite helpful in assessing a project's DHF proposal, but also that we as Actifit have been putting in the work and doing our best to adhere to them.
A Thank you is due to our 770+ DHF supporters to whom we are very grateful for believing in our work over the years, and that we will continue to deliver.

Do not confuse blowing up a balloon with expansion. The balloon is expanding not its mass. The eco system remains stalled. Just a thought.

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GM @lordbutterfly,

Thank you for initiating this important discussion. I'd like to share some insights specifically from the perspective of DBuzz.

Since June 2023, we've released six development reports for https://d.buzz. While we've been actively making multiple releases, our next comprehensive announcement post will be the biggest and is planned for publishing soon, preferably before December 1, 2023.

By December 15, 2023 we will also open source all our DBuzz-related code to the public, aligning with the open-source ethos highlighted by @mcfarhat, which I deeply respect.

Focusing on DBuzz's contributions, I may not have the complete picture of all Hive-funded dApps, but I can share some observations. For instance, our recent experience with #Metamask for integration with https://Lite.D.Buzz revealed that @keychain's performance is impressively faster. This comparison offered us valuable insights.

We're also enthusiastic about the initial chatting product by @peak.open. DBuzz is now hosting it on https://chat.d.buzz, with plans to integrate, enhance, and share it back with the Hive community, including the @peak.open team.

Another notable mention is the DEX by @disregardfiat. We're gearing up to run an instance of this as well, showcasing the collaborative spirit as a result of DHF funding.

Our commitment at DBuzz has been unwavering since January 2020, and with the support from DHF since June 15, 2023, we've been able to expand our development capacity and in addition to the upcoming large development report, we are also in talks with multiple Asian exchanges to list $HIVE and possibly $HBD.

received_840570047861710.jpeg

Total userbase is currently around 18M+ with MAU hovering around 2-4M, peaking at 7M.

https://peakd.com/hive/@dbuzz/open-letter-to-coinsph

We're fully committed and very passionate about contributing and enhancing the Hive ecosystem. More soon and thank you for your work.

I'm going to go off on one here just a little bit because.. that's what happens when I see people getting crazy amounts of money for seemingly nothing. Yes I'm jealous probably.

I personally find it quite... annoying that there are many developers subsidising their entire teams salary via the DHF but seem to make no effort to make their products they have actually viable as a profitable business.

Granted at the current user level of hive it's probably difficult to generate much income in general, but most things don't even have any form of revenue stream as far as I can tell other than the DHF..

These maintenance & dev proposals you see are what I'm on about. Seriously people need to actually think like a business more than oh hey I made a thing please pay for it's upkeep for me. while not actually trying to make it pay for itself..

The amount of money some people get form the DHF is staggering. If I had that kind of money coming in I'd have a new house, stable living and all the time in the world to churn out code with no worries lurking over me.

It's.. sad, frustrating and generally.. ugh.. Least that's how it makes me feel anyways.
Seeing all this happening in the DHF just doesn't instil any ounce of motivation to actually create stuff for hive.

I personally find it quite... annoying that there are many developers subsidising their entire teams salary via the DHF but seem to make no effort to make their products they have actually viable as a profitable business.

Absolutely agree with this. DHF should be there to imo to fund growth and lead dapps to self sustainability. Proper businesses akin to Splinterlands.
Now... thats a big obstacle to overcome since there is something called "open source code" that they deliver and its hard to put a monetary value to that.

Seeing all this happening in the DHF just doesn't instil any ounce of motivation to actually create stuff for hive.

I dont agree with that sentiment as the opposite is true for me. It motivates me to help do things properly where I can and if Im able to. With this im not able to as I dont understand the relation to what is generally expected for the pay received..

Seeing all this happening in the DHF just doesn't instil any ounce of motivation to actually create stuff for hive.

I dont agree with that sentiment as the opposite is true for me. It motivates me to help do things properly where I can and if Im able to. With this im not able to as I dont understand the relation to what is generally expected for the pay received..

I should probably view it that way as well rather than being all 'doom and gloom' & 'whats the point' kinda feeling. Since thinking that way really doesn't get me anywhere.

Sorta like.. 'dude you're doing it wrong, let me show you how it's really done' kinda thing.

Sorta like.. 'dude you're doing it wrong, let me show you how it's really done' kinda thing.

Exactly. Im not saying ill be right but if more people chip in, we have a saying in my country:

"A donkey and a man are smarter than just a man."

Paraphrasing :D.

There is one thing where I struggle with the DHF. There is absolutely no accountability for what is done and how much is "billed". It's a blanco check for the people who get funded. I believe, there should be an inbuilt control mechanisme in the DHF. Devs should write down the effective hours that they work on a project and there should be a handfull of controlers, people, that double check the work done. Each month, the funded project would need to deposit a work rapport with how many hours that were spent and how much has been achieved. The controllers would check that and autorize the funding for this month. For this work, the controllers would touch a certain amount per project checked. This would provide an income for them and they could publish their own findings. Each project would automatically require the funding of these controllers. Best would be if there were many controllers and for each project a certain amount of controllers would be randomly selected.

I believe that the DHF doesn't give an incentive to actually reach a finished project. The longer it takes to develop something, the longer the project can ask for DHF money. I don't know any other place where you can get money for an idea and nobody checks whether the money you get is actually used as advertised... As long as there are no checks in place, the DHF will always be used in a very unefficent way.

What you write reminds me of Kickstarter. There is a high percentage of Kickstarter projects that get amazing funding and then... don't do anything. They take the money and run. Or they give empty updates for years but never actually do anything. There is absolutely no accountability there. It seems like that should be illegal, but it just keeps happening.

A lot of what gets funded by the DHF looks pretty much the same to me.

The beauty of cryptoLALALAND

Unfortunately I agree that without checks and balances, it becomes the subject of a latent corruption... It would be a great tool but it definitely needs accountability I believe.

I believe, there should be an inbuilt control mechanisme in the DHF. Devs should write down the effective hours that they work on a project and there should be a handfull of controlers, people, that double check the work done.

Yes. Absolutely. things can be gamed, but putting safety guards raises the morality alarms in their heads. "Will I cheat and lie like a dipshit or do i just work as promised".
No safeguard is perfect but its better than anything.

I believe that the DHF doesn't give an incentive to actually reach a finished project.

All good points.

I think I'm of the opposite mind here. It should be much easier to get some funding... and then harder to get continued funding. Dbuzz for example has been filling blockchain meetups and events in the area of the world with half the population. If they can show results from the investment why not let them keep going to grow the ecosystem. We have some pretty big problems to solve in terms of retention and ease of signup, and it's not like our place on the top 200 is improving...

After all, our DHF fund continues to grow, not shrink. Now is the time to get these incubators hot, not later.

fullstacklabs.co screencap

By this metric we are employing the equivalent of 1.5 enterprise level developers. Hive is known as a "Hobby Chain" and this is one of the reasons.

After all, our DHF fund continues to grow, not shrink.

It is not without a cost. All these peoroposals with grossly inflated costs results in increased sell pressure. Stake holders incur this cost. Most of these proposals are extracting 10x value than they provide to Hive.

Hive is a very tiny community, yet we are spending $2.5M+ a year on proposals most of which not doing anything to help Hive grow. This is real money that ultimately is dumped on exchanges for Bitcoin and other tokens.

While I hear “we have the money and we have to spend it on something”, the reality is this reckless spending has an extreme cost to stake holders.

This is also true, and I agree. I'm making investing as much of my payout as possible into hive power a goal of mine... after all the more invested we are supposedly the better incentivized we are to provide some value even after our proposals are gone. I should hit Orca by the end of the year... Which I believe will be about 40% of my payout. The alternative is losing some skills to other projects with VC funding. The DHF isn't perfect, but it's still better than nothing.

The DHF isn't perfect, but it's still better than nothing.

I disagree, with how much we are spending, how much we are getting, and the size of our community, nothing would be greatly better at this point. Not having $2.5M sell pressure would be more value than most of the proposals provide.

Well... the terrible chain that shouldn't be mentioned doesn't use their DHF... has a market cap of 127M and we have 187M... so at least we know where no dev pressure puts a marketcap.

You also can't just assume all payouts are sell pressure. And if you did we could assume all HBD savings payouts are sell pressure... which is 1.5M. And your witness votes for 20%APR.

And when I say the DHF fund is growing more than it's paying out... JUST the HBDStabilizer has contributed over 3.1M to the DHF which also removed several million from the content curation... So it's a net negative on sell pressure versus not having one.

they also have SBD priced 530% higher than our stable coin resulting in massive payouts for post rewards. Their daily volume is also well over 10x ours, we are typically 2-10M/day they are like 60-100M/day. For example today we had 6M and they had 80M. It's not even close, add in the massive additional inflation from $5+ SBD price is huge.

Fundamentals be dammed lol

If they can show results from the investment why not let them keep going to grow the ecosystem.

Their proposal is not a clear cut dev work one. Obviously theres more to it. But they stated dev work in proposal so anyone should be able to judge what they deliver in that aspect of the % of funding received.

The question posed, unrelated to dbuzz, was just related to judging clear dev work and how their received pay relates to the work they deliver. Is it justifiable? Are some slacking off? Are they underpaid? Are their gitlab commits apart by months. Are we overpaying some?
The example of Netuouso was given here. We all know how that went.

Can we keep devs on Hive accountable for the money received or can they just decide one day they dont feel like it and not work for 2-3 weeks on anything.

Its guys like you that should be able to answer that question since you understand the work, the business, the skill needed.
How do you see it? Are we paying for dev work for some of these proposals more than we should?

Yeah, We are paying more for some things than we should but we are also paying less for some things than we should. Given how hard it is to get any funding though, we aren't paying enough. But it's not all dev work either, and the cheaper a dev is the more it costs to get them to a crypto conference, flights and hotels don't get any cheaper... nor do servers. It's also harder to employ any dev with these skills as it's much easier to sell out and work for the Justin Sun's of the world.

Specific complaints should be put on the funding proposal posts, and brought forward to new funding posts. In general it's still too hard to use the DHF for a newcomer. (I edited the original comment to include a comparison)

We are paying more for some things than we should but we are also paying less for some things than we should.

So obviously you are aware of it. I assume other devs are as well. How do we deliver that information outwards to the community in a non-confrontational manner?
Who isnt delivering work for the funding they receive. Can other devs offer to do the same work for a reasonable amount?
Can we maybe put all the dev work under the same umbrella with a vetting system in place.

Just making sure that the devs know their work is being watched would make sure they dont slack off and be comfortable like Netouso was.

Specific complaints should be put on the funding proposal posts, and brought forward to new funding posts.

Someone that understands the material should do it. The community doesnt. And because of collegial relationships devs have with each other I dont think anyone is willing to.
So we need a system in place where we have someone that has a purpose, a job to do so.

Its entirely possible that some folks receiving funds dont do anything anything for weeks and just keep stuff running in the background.

https://peakd.com/hive/@hivewatchers/the-hivewatchers-and-spaminator-operational-proposal-for-the-period-2022-2024

For me personally this is the most detrimental of the proposals, and nearly every comment on it is negative. But it's still funded. I don't think we have a problem with airing our grievances. @bitcoinflood also likes to ask some of the harder questions on otherwise positive posts. Enough people value this project, so it remains part of the ecosystem. I'd like to see @deathwing proposal for a image server mirror funded, but there are enough questions on that one that it's not supported. The current state of the DHF is really tight and while it's something to think about, it's being thought about and we have the receipts.

😅 You know that wasnt the purpose of the post. Judging proposal merits. We can make that a discussion another day and everyone can have their opinion.

Im solely asking a question if we can check if the devs getting paid for dev work are actually doing that work for the money they are paid and if that dev work is worth the money based on reasonable open market values.

I do believe that's the case in general. Nearly all the work is opensource. I was just pointing out the culture here isn't one of keeping your head down to stay in anybodies good graces.

money doesn't grow on trees nor does crypto token values. It comes at a cost no matter how much wants to say it doesn't. If you're paying someone HBD then they are going to be selling it off which creates downward pressure in order to finds these projects.

Just because you have money to be spent doesn't mean you haphazardly spend it. These projects need to be brining in MORE value then what they are asking for otherwise it's a BAD investment for the DHF.

From someone on the outside looking in. No, the amount of money flowing out of the DHF and what is being shown is far from where it should be.

I catch hell for speaking up about it all the time from mutes to downvotes in the past but I just can't bring myself to suck up just to get some votes lol.

If we look at the current proposals right now minus the HBD stabilizer we have a total of 15,440 HBD going out of the DHF each day. Now you could subtract the 10000 for the Value fund as that's a quick burst and that project makes sense to keep up events and going to events. It's a small cost for really getting the word out there. So that put's us at 5,440 HBD per day.

Some of these projects make total sense like...
VSC Network for Smart contracts - We have been yelling we want smart contracts forever now and the core developers now three years later seem no where closer today then they did back then. Maybe I'm wrong but that would be on lack of presenting to the community what you're working on and doing.

Core Development - As core development has to be ongoing.

Keychain - A lot of people use it and there's really not a way for the app to generate revenue for the development work it does.

Ecency and PeakD make sense as they are open source projects but in a way they should start to be developing revenue themselves now instead of constantly feeding off of the DHF. To me the DHF is more of a incubator program where money is provided to build a project but the project needs to become profitable on it's own or generate some profit itself so that the daily HBD ask from the DHF is reduced not always constantly going up.

Now other ones that don't make sense to me for continued funding would be
Actifit - 230 HBD per day
Dbuzz - 792 HBD per day

These two above programs provide little in terms of development work if you ask me. Dbuzz in particular being that the core developers live in another country where development costs are extremely cheap. These platforms need to generate their own revenue streams on their apps.

This is the biggest issue I have with the constant funding of these projects. Little value or way overcast projects that provide little in terms of generating wealth for the blockchain and instead just create exits for people to make content and sell it is the biggest pitch. If that's the case then the Actifit token buzz token need to be how they make their money. Much like LEO is doing with their own token through ads to generate wealth back into their token and into hive instead of it just being an off ramp exit cash grab.

I'm sure I'll catch hell again for opening my mouth but these apps need to start acting more like a business and not as a hobby to siphon off DHF money all the time. But being that this is a decentralized platform people such as myself should be able to express themselves and offer constructive feedback like this without fear of being downvoted etc.

I very much believe in Hive and what it can and could become and is why I voice my opinions and concerns and continue to invest in projects on Hive and the Hive token itself.

It really has given me faith in us government spending. Suddenly $5000 toilet plungers looks reasonable.

You always seem to put a positive twist on everything. :D

I would say that every single project in the DHF makes sense to many people in many ways. The question im posing is if the developers receiving funds are putting in work that would justify the funding they are asking.

Maybe the devs on the project that makes most sense to everybody are putting in 1/3 of the commits that should be expected of them.
Someone needs to vet that imo. That someone needs to be of technical nature.
So we either pay them less or they work harder if any of that is the case.

The post itself isnt really looking for opinions about projects. Im trying to see if the devs themselves are putting in the work that would be expected of developers for the pay they receive.

Having someone vet would be good but they would most likely want DHF funding as well and you'd be expecting and trusting this one person to be honest and not taking bribes on the backend. It also starts to really centralize things when you start doing that.

It honestly comes down to those top 50 or 100 people that hold the most hive that vote for these projects. That's about all the push you need to get these projects approved right now. Who's holding them accountable or should they even be held accountable? Are they doing proper vetting? and does it matter since they hold so much hive themselves they have either invested or committed enough to the blockchain already that everyone feels it's warranted.

I'm still going to go back to the DHF shouldn't be constantly tapped into for these 3rd party projects and instead be more of an incubator type platform where the funds get returned to the DHF over time and the application has got to come up with a way to generate revenue themselves which if they really believed in web3 and decentralization that those funds would also go back to their users and creators that use their application.

However a constant tap for core development should be a thing but those core developers I'm going to say need to be a little more vocal about what they are doing. Almost need a project manager with a decentralized voting system for what the community wants the core devs to work on next such as smart contracts.

Having someone vet would be good but they would most likely want DHF funding as well and you'd be expecting and trusting this one person to be honest and not taking bribes on the backend. It also starts to really centralize things when you start doing that.

Hopefully not. I dont think someone would be so nuts to take actual bribes on that. If they would I would be extremely disappointed in this community knowing that someone like that lives among us.

It honestly comes down to those top 50 or 100 people that hold the most hive that vote for these projects.

id say that anyone with the knowhow could do it. why would they need to be top 50-100? Any and all of us can raise questions.

Almost need a project manager with a decentralized voting system for what the community wants the core devs to work on next such as smart contracts.

Id definitely be up for that.

Hopefully not. I dont think someone would be so nuts to take actual bribes on that. If they would I would be extremely disappointed in this community knowing that someone like that lives among us.

Unfortunately, when money (especially a lot of money) enters the equation, all bets are off. Even good men are corrupted by money. It's not greed, it's survival. Need to pay for my kids school, wife has cancer and have to pay for healthcare, car is breaking down and can't afford to have it fixed by it is necessary, etc. Corruption has a way of working its way into even the purest hearts.

To me the DHF is more of a incubator program where money is provided to build a project but the project needs to become profitable on it's own or generate some profit itself so that the daily HBD ask from the DHF is reduced not always constantly going up.

I strongly AGREE with this... Everything that isn't a core blockchain development should be viewed as an "incubation" (or startup) program/help... After a while, apps should find a way to finance themselves... Also, it's not the same developing the app from zero, and maintaining it when it's created (of course, depends on the app, but still...)

Some of these projects make total sense like...
VSC Network for Smart contracts

What makes sense is smart contracts not VSC, it's not clear to me that VSC will be able to finish Smart Contracts, is it to you?

I dont have a way to say that they wont be. I trusted the opinions of those that know more than me on that proposal that voted it.

So I believe they already analised the work done and know it will be finished. Who are they? Can you mention them? (Others than the proposal devs, if possible)

People that voted on the proposal that i trust know more than me when it comes to dev work. They either employ many devs or are devs themselves.. Stoodkev, Dan, Lin, Splinterlands, arcange.

Great!
Lucky this will remain on Blockchain so no need to printscreen ;)
We will have smart contracts one day, but not those ones.

Why dont you think that will be it?

Ecency and PeakD make sense as they are open source projects but in a way they should start to be developing revenue themselves now instead of constantly feeding off of the DHF.

We are moving to web3, if we force web2's funding models onto it how will it differ from it?
IF we persist with crapitalism's methods, can we expect to move on to something that sacrifices fewer babies on the profit alter?

The people using these apps should be paying the freight to keep them running.
In a free world that means donations.

How many people are paying the devs for the use of hivetasks, or hive.vote?
Not even a nickel?
Shame, I say.

Paying for these projects out of the inflation equalizes the tax across the platform.
Clearly the authors are not gonna set beneficiaries to pay their own freight, absent a push to shame them for their leaching.

In return for funding from the dhf, we can demand that the projects care about rewards pool abuse.
Some of the projects mentioned above don't give a damn.
They sell votes by proxies and hide that fact behind rhetoric about it not being a direct exchange.
We forked to escape the leaching that is vote selling, then we turned a blind eye to variations on the theme.
Smdh.

IF users want any of those platforms to persist, they need to finance them either directly from their posts, votes, and/or (heaven forbid!) gifts, or indirectly through the dhf.

Until the playing field levels out some more, funding through the dhf is involuntary taxation for some percentage of the users.
The people using those apps need to step up into their adulting roles and stop leaching off the rest of us, at some point, imo.

I can only describe the DHF as what is known in economics as a Tragedy of the Commons and it is one of the worst things about Hive. Perhaps if Hive was bigger than it is, it would not make much difference, but to see so many garbage projects funded doesn't get me excited about Hive. If someone would create a proposal to burn the DHF funds, it would get my vote.

I don't think it's a bad idea. It has funded a lot of good things. But I do think that the current system needs a change, because it is so corrupt, with junk being funded left and right, making it resemble Kickstarter, where so many projects receive funding and then run with the money, disappearing, leaving the investors high and dry.

Thanks for the input but i disagree. The DHF is one of the best things about Hive. Im just looking for ways to improve it, in this specific case when it comes to developers. The system is as good as we make it.

As one of the people receiving funds from the DHF for dev work, I can say I really welcome posts like this that scrutinize who is receiving funding, how much, and what is being delivered.

I am not really sure about devs checking the work of other devs. Maybe it is possible and viable. I just don't know.

One thing that might work is to have some kind of talks or interviews where projects receiving funding periodically go to give an update to the community. And the community can ask questions. And the community can maybe get a better sense of what challenges there are and whether a project is delivering appropriately or not, and decide to support or stop supporting a project. Just an idea.

I honestly think it should be a requirement to have updates. If you're not writing an article to explain what you're working on and accomplishing then how is anyone suppose to know. The main issue however at least in terms of business structure with startups I've worked with is devs have a VERY hard time communicating to ever day users what they are doing. It's normally way too techy and over their heads while users simply just care about the front end they are seeing and what it does for them. It's often the reason you have someone between the dev and the community lol to act as that filter and present it in a hyped up way while showing value. Now don't get me wrong some devs are good at both but they are very rare.

Yep. Show updates or funding is revoked.

I am not really sure about devs checking the work of other devs. Maybe it is possible and viable. I just don't know.

I dont see any other options right now. They understand the material and the work.

One thing that might work is to have some kind of talks or interviews where projects receiving funding periodically go to give an update to the community. And the community can ask questions.

The problem is that the community doesnt understand the work. We could be told anything in a convincing manner and we would believe it because we dont understand the relations between effort, work, pay.
The scrutiny needs to come from devs themselves. A self check system or someone actually paying attention to whats done and pointing to it.

What about giving the money after they showed work done.
That would make it logic and simple.
Not like they wouldnt be paid but the otherway around is obviously and also logically a big issue.
We pay for a service done and dish we ate.

I have thought about this quite a lot. I know there are some freeloaders for sure, but I don't really feel like I am in a position to call anyone out at this point.

I have a really cool idea that I'd like to build for Hive, but I want to actually make sure that I can pull it off. Therefore I plan to actually built it out to a certain degree on my own time. If it turns out to be useful and becomes popular, then perhaps I will try to fund further development with the DHF.

Unfortunately all i got here was 100% of devs pre-emptively trying to clear their name even though they werent called out in any way and talk how their project was amazing.
I knew that would happen and i specifically made it clear thats not what i wanted. So all in all this was an entirely pointless post because out of professional curtesy not a single dev is willing to speak up about anything that relates to anyone else.

*Me again :)

*this means a bit if irony or if you want, "I'm here again to talk about things some don't like"

Glad you're "concerned" about DHF funds and the way they flow.

If you have 5 minutes, I invite you to read this https://peakd.com/swc/@doze/street-workout-community
I don't expect so many waves from you since you are involved in a project also supported by valueplan (project that did not start well, in my opinion, but I think is going on the right way now), but I also think you're not a sucker and already see you express your opinion no matter what.
Cheers!

I dont think that post applies to the question placed here. hehe.
Keeping on topic is important.

It's about DHF and the biggest proposals ever :) like I said I don't expect people making many waves about valueplan, it's to big ;)
But if you want my opinion on topic let's go.
If you want to have some work getting data on the Blockchain you will see some dev proposals that staked good part of the HBD received from DHF to receive 20% HBD interest.
So, in my opinion the better was, first show at least some work or any "finished" functionality and then get funded.
DHF in general should be used to attract better devs (in my opinion Hive have a lack of good devs, for me simply learning dev in YouTube doesn't count as dev 🤪) and professional marketing.

But if you want my opinion on topic let's go.
If you want to have some work getting data on the Blockchain you will see some dev proposals that staked good part of the HBD received from DHF to receive 20% HBD interest.

I think youre focusing on the wrong things imo. I dont generally care what is done with the funds they get paid for their work, I care if they arent delivering or working as hard as they should for the pay they receive. Once they do receive it, stake it, stake HBD, sell it, its their business.
Someone that understands the developer business should be able to answer that.

"I dont generally care what is done with the funds they get paid" and "I care if they arent delivering or working as hard as they should for the pay they receive" is like say "I don't care about rose but I care about pink"
But I rest my case. 👋

why should you care what they do with funds they receive? it is like if your employer cared how you spend the money you earn working. If you did your job, it is your money to do with it what ever you want.

You don't get it.. I don't care with what they do with the funds they receive, I care if the funds they receive is for what they say in the proposal post.
Let's say, I/someone make a proposal saying, give me 200k per year during 2 years, I will stake all in HBD and after 3 years I will show you a decentralized App, will you approve?
My employer pay me today for the work I've done yesterday if I spend everything in beer, it's not his business. My employer do not give me money for the work I supposedly will make in 2 years from now.
If you say I need 200 HBD per day to pay my devs to make app XYZ why would you stake part of that? It means you don't need 200 per day.
This is not about control! We are free, free today, tomorrow, always! I'm free and will fight for your freedom if needed! This is about transparency and honestly!

Bilprag answered below. I dont think your analogy applies to this case.
Once they get it, its theirs. its on us to make sure they earn it with their work and right now i have no way to determine if some or most do.

DHF in general should be used to attract better devs (in my opinion Hive have a lack of good devs, for me simply learning dev in YouTube doesn't count as dev 🤪) and professional marketing.

Unfortunately, this is true... We do have devs, but the products are usually half-developed, not finished, without a proper user guide, etc... Of course, there are exceptions...

Of course there are exceptions but honestly, we don't talk about that because is a Hive App, is like say something wrong or listen something wrong about a parent, we don't like, the fact is, some dapps are just poor.

some dapps are just poor.

In any case, what you said above, could (and probably are) sending the message out there that HIVE (as a blockchain) is poor and bad, while that isn't the case at all... "poor dapps" are, but not a whole blockchain...

I had a few IRL conversations on this topic and I noticed exactly that pattern... Even from Hivians that were saying exactly that... Because of broken H-E tribes (bad tokenomics, minting tokens like crazy, etc.), games that sucked all HIVE from people and left them with worthless tokens, the image of HIVE is ugly... Those dapps will disappear and others will appear, but the HIVE stays, and we have to clean and re-build the HIVE brand...

Again, back to @lordbutterfly's comment... Things may look bad, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible to improve them... Even knowing "dirty things" doesn't mean that we should quit... It's quite the opposite for me...

No no! Blockchain code is awesome! So far 100% proof against any problems, during 6 years or so, it's impressive!

Chatgpt devs ... 90% of them

Eheheh I would say YouTube tutorials devs, because they are older than chatgpt

Nevertheless...The tsunami of pseudo chatgpt devs is coming.

I think this is the problem not only the DHF but the whole crypto industry faces right now, especially in bear market times.

First of all I'd like to introduce myself in case someone wants to know where my opinion comes from. I'm Haris or @knowhow92 , on Hive for more than 5 years, founder of @skatehive community and currently working at the largest DAO aggregator on the market in the partnerships position.

As a Hiver who has proved he's here to stay and who builds his project on Hive I do believe that we sometimes spend more than the "normal" in some projects but at the same time spending more than the "normal" on a project can have positive impacts on the motivation of the team to build with hype. We're still so early so paying people handsomely to get the job done ensures product quality (most of the times). If we can lay a solid and high quality ecosystem now that so few people are on Web3 we can ensure Hive is positioned to thrive in the future when more and more people will be joining.

On the other hand I do get the concerns of the community after getting rugged pull thousands of dollars for delivering nothing and I find only one solution in this.

TRANSPARENCY and OVERSIGHT

Solely relying on projects to post updates will never work and we'll keep repeating the same mistakes or the community will deny funding to projects who really wanna build some cool shit.

The only way to have transparency is by establishing a 3rd party to do the job, such as Hivewatchers do for content creation but for the DHF. A party responsible of tracking proposals, initiate communication with builders and reporting back to the community.

By doing this we make sure we support projects that indeed build and we make sure these updates reach to everyone within Hive community. We also make sure we spot potential "dangers", warn the community about them and the community adjust their votes to the DHF accordingly.

I can make a more detailed post about if this is something that Hive community finds usefull or even create a DHF proposal to fund this initiative.

Thanks for raising this concern @lordbutterfly

I personally do not understand why we keep having many DApps, maybe a technical thing I am yet to understand. DApp at this point should be able to make it’s money. I have given this some thought for some days and I sincerely believe there should be some form of restructuring of the Hive rewards system. If you want to develop something, do it and try to “sell” it to potential users. Like I said, I do not know much.

I just feel like we are paying people to do what they should do on their own. I hate to make this comparison, but take marketing for instance, why pay people to market Hive in their communities? If everyone focuses on advertising their content and ensuring they draw traffic to their content, maybe we can reward them somehow… I am beginning to type too much.

Anyways, I hope there can be a way to verify that funds are used accordingly.

I personally do not understand why we keep having many DApps, maybe a technical thing I am yet to understand.

Well, other projects have more dapps than us and its good for perception of activity. Im not someone that will support what Solana or Tron do where the same devs fake dapps just for quantity sake but its generally considered good if dapps make sense.

DApp at this point should be able to make it’s money.

I agree with this completely. Eventually all dapps should be able to stand on their own two feet like Splinterlands is doing for example.
Funding should be there so they grow.

If everyone focuses on advertising their content and ensuring they draw traffic to their content, maybe we can reward them somehow… I am beginning to type too much.

Me and a few others like Eric from Inleo, 3speak is very active with their social media stuff, have been trying to educate people on that and its a slow process. Its changing but slowly.
Whatever we do NEEDS to be seen.

@lordbutterfly 79 comments later (great and prolific engagement) can you resume what conclusions could you take on this?

My conclusion is that 1 dev came on gave a response that its not excessive spending and no one else was willing to show up making me think that this isnt something devs want to talk about.
The rest of the non dev folks gave opinions about project merits which again shows that the community has very little knowledge about the topic which was my initial hypothesis. part of the reason why I wanted devs to share their thoughts.

Conclusion, the main reason for the DHF to exist have a rudimentary scrutiny. Do you agree?

making me think that this isnt something devs want to talk about

In general, people on Hive don't openly talk about key themes.. don't know why, it seems that there are something around that makes people think that is better "don't get involved". This "something around" is the elephant in the room.

In general, people on Hive don't openly talk about key themes

It generates conflict. And those happy with their situation dont want to put themselves under the microscope which would happen if they raise questions about something.
What I will do, ill give it a few more days is unvote all dev projects that didnt respond to the inquiry to me as a voter of their proposal.
I think thats fair and expected.

It generates conflict. And those happy with their situation dont want to put themselves under the microscope which would happen if they raise questions about something.

This is something that worries me the most... We are "presenting" ourselves as a chain that supports freedom of speech, while people are scared to say what they think...

If we roll back the film back to the legacy chain, even with those dick pics, people were saying what they mean more freely... I know it looked like we were fighting all over the place, but at least we had a discussion... It's sad to see that only 1 dev replied to this post, while it looks like others don't need to justify themselves and their work...

Btw... Thanks for raising questions... Very much appreciated!

This is something that worries me the most... We are "presenting" ourselves as a chain that supports freedom of speech, while people are scared to say what they think...

We have free speech but there is consequence to speech. I mean I know what some are saying in the background... "Heres Butterfly again trying to start some drama". And I can tell you exactly to the word whos saying what. 😅
Everything said has a consequence and Im aware of it.
It might be too costly for some.

Btw... Thanks for raising questions... Very much appreciated!

😉

Some good points and finally made me read a post on Hive again, important topic. For audience outside or newbies you might add a link what DHF means. D stands not for only Devs, anyone could add value to Hive with ideas etc.

Right now we simply lack user base to attract developers to use our chain for brilliant DApps as they obviously lean towards chains where they can earn from their DApps, for this we need users. The chain is ready to be one of the best chains but we are simply known as a web3 Facebook, not famous for chain specs, this is the main issue in my view

Something that is close to our hearts in the Man Cave. I am no developer so like you I wouldn't know what is a fair sum, versus what is a ridiculous sum, however it's a point often discussed in our discord as to what the DHF is being used for and if anyone is holding them to account for the work that they do.

This is something that is sorely lacking. A system that would hold whoever makes a DHF proposal to the work they said they would do and the expenses they said they would incur, and it definitely should not be something that is for profit, in the sense that a proposal pays them a salary for doing it.

I don't like the current system I will say, but I'm just one voice in a thousand so I remain silent on the issue.

But I will say anything that I have built I've done it with our own funds, and I absolutely refuse to make a proposal because I know how easy it can be to just put things off to the next day when I'm not being held accountable for anything.

So I'd support something like this with any means necessary. Even if it's just adding our brofi upvote to the list for any work done investigating.

Great post! I'm disappointed that there aren't more devs speaking up in the comments. That of course makes it appear like they are silently acknowledging that the system is corrupt and they don't want light shone on it, so they will ignore the post and hope the questions go away.

My take is the DHF does fund good stuff. But it also funds a lot of junk. In the latter it more resembles Kickstarter, where so many projects once they receive funding will simply disappear with the money, leaving investors high and dry.

The system of receiving funding needs to be updated to account for bad actors. And everyone should be assumed to be a bad actor. Money corrupts, simply put. We may think we would be different, but when a lot of money comes our way, everything changes. There need to be constraints put in place to prevent this corruption or at least mitigate it.

One such that I can think of is, if you are funded you give weekly updates on progress, otherwise you lose funding, end of story. I'm sure others could think of more constraints.

That constraint is perfect.

No one who recieves 1400$ a day with zero constraint or Proof of work ...works.

Hey @lordbutterfly ,

Without calling into question the work already carried out by DBuzz, I would like to understand why DHF has to bear the costs of office or equipment upgrades as described in the proposal
DBuzz Proposal

In my humble opinion, DHF funds should be to boost dapps in their initial state where they may need funds to do so and not to create a “company” where even office costs are paid in the proposal.

Because there is too much money to spend, we pay also for Qtips and tampons.

The issue that you highlighted were highlighted by myself prior to HF 24, As I recall you were around for those conversations.

The issues I highlighted then have come to fruition.
The mannerisms of the FIAT world are just as strong in the digital.

Do you think we should change the whole structure of the blockchain and their rewards?
Is it just the DHF you would like to see changes with.

As I was told. If you want to make a difference stake up.

Now here we are again. Someone see's something wrong. Seeks support for what they see might be wrong. Support for that. Every time there is an issue a project. It's holler out and get support. Dividing people in a digital space you want people to come together and unite.

Is this going to be a repetitive thing. Seek support for something over and over again, each time there is an issue?

Why not start organizing funding now for the next emergency?

Mannerisms...

Insightful.

Is this an emergency now, in your view?

Myself I see no emergency.
If it is a proposal, Then it is to bring to the attention those who supported the proposal, Or maybe they already know the con.

If it is a project earning rewards from posts. Should the project be true or false it makes no difference. People will be stupid with their money, They must learn somehow.

If people are handing over their own money for the games. Then they should do deeper research or maybe join groups to hear information about the games/projects.

On one side people do not want others to monitor their financials. Those same want to monitor the finances of others.

Close em down, New phone new ID new account same all over again. It's a joke the way things are done around here. Just people bitching about others and no one doing anything that will change things.

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Wow
The amount of money some people make through DHF is a whole lot. I would not say it is normal but truly, there are times I think about the amount if money but it is a whole lot...

Reality, agreed

Funny thing the big funding passes for some things we can't all agree is aewsome value for the dollar yet hive-tube.com who syndicated nearly all of web2 to Hive can't get very few dollars & they have done soo much... monetized all web2, users can plug their twitch, youtube, twitter & many more into a Hive wallet & all content publishes on chain automatically... if Hive embraced them & marketed this...

This was a very interesting read. I had never considered much of what you put out there, and it's a lot to consider. Thank you so much for bringing the topic to light!!!

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Despite all the opinions on the rights and wrongs of where the money is going, the amount of money in the DHF is INCREASING. Sure, we can definitely optimise how the money is spent and that's an important conversation.. but, additionally, if people don't think there should be a DHF funding projects as it does, then they should probably stop upvoting the HBD stabiliser. lol

There are several problems with the payouts as I see it:

  1. The pay rates in different parts of the world are wildly different and even experts in coding aren't going to know how this maps in a realistic way - so assessing pay for projects is not trivial.

  2. Most people don't know enough about code, marketing or project growth to really be able to professionally appraise a project. Even the people who do know how to do some or all of these typically don't invest their time in checking over the work of funded projects - presumably because there is no reward in it for them directly, only the hassle of 'outing' problem projects.

  3. As a whole, the community lacks access to data to analyse regarding these projects, their benefits and the potential gains they offer. There's no one size fits all solution to this unfortunately. I would LOVE to see projects get funded that aim to formalise and add structure to marketing data and analytics of all kinds for Hive, so that we can collectively understand what is affecting the network in order to detect areas that need work - plus identify the work that needs doing.

Personally, I can see how having generalised smart contract functionality on Hive is going to be the main tool to solving all of these problems - once people engineer clever code to target them. Smart contracts are necessary in order to create complex structures on Hive that empower/reward people for specific tasks beyond simply writing posts and receiving votes.

Once this is functional we can start to build a DAC (Decentralised Autonomous Community/Corporation) which grows itself through an ever evolving suite of smart contracts that optimise the energy we put into the system but in ways that we voluntarily agree to. Projects that lead us here in reliable ways deserve support.

Despite all the opinions on the rights and wrongs of where the money is going, the amount of money in the DHF is INCREASING.

The amount of money in the US treasury is increasing as well. Doesn't mean it doesn't impact the value of that money. In the case of the DHF, the sustained dumping of the HBD does in fact dramatically affect stake holders especially when it is handed out poorly and in large quantities.

To think we have plenty of money we should spend it on something is so short sighted and ignorant. That's a direct quote of the largest DHF receiver (by far) on Hive.

image.png

My point is partially that the system is designed for the money to be spent. That's part of the advertised design of the system and part of what people bought into on that basis. It's all an experiment and so we need to treat it as such, but still - people invested on the basis that this money would be routed to projects that stakeholders supported.

I agree that the directing of the rewards pools is very important and absolutely does affect stakeholders. The answer, though, imo - is not to stop paying the money out - it's to cultivate better projects and have the money spent in better ways.

To think we have plenty of money we should spend it on something is so short sighted and ignorant.

That's kind of built in to the design of the system though, it's been there since day one. It works more for rewarding posts than for complex software projects and I am not for a moment saying 'throw the money around willy nilly'.

That's a direct quote of the largest DHF receiver (by far) on Hive.

I'm not sure who exactly you are quoting there, but for the record I have generally been opposed to the funding of much of what I see valueplan paying for.

My point is partially that the system is designed for the money to be spent.

Spending it poorly and wastefully on things not really helping Hive is not what it was meant for. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

100% yes.

What for a long time now I've been wondering way too often is... ¿Why the hell more people don't ask these kinds of questions publicly to the Hive community with more frequency?

¿Huh?

Lack of reach, perhaps?

¿LACK Of Reach?

...yeah, could be!

lol