The frustration in this thread is legitimate. Real money was spent on work that didn’t deliver. Talent has left. None of that is comfortable to sit with.
But there are only two honest responses. Leave, and put your energy somewhere you believe in more. Or stay, and build the part that was missing.
This post was about one specific failure mode: proposals that pass without serious scrutiny. That’s fixable. It doesn’t require new infrastructure or foundation support. It requires voters who check the code, ask what already exists, and hold proposers to what they promised. @jslusser’s response here is proof that shift is already happening — an Aye voter looking back and saying “we should have been more rigorous.” That’s the culture change.
@Onepebble, Permanence DAO’s structured review process — ten-member internal reviews with published vote counts — is exactly the kind of rigor that was missing on the Aye side of this referendum. Your point about curator accountability and post-funding outcome tracking deserves its own thread. That’s a concrete mechanism the ecosystem can implement.
@w3nerick, the talent loss is real. But talent follows opportunity, and opportunity follows credibility. Every proposal that passes scrutiny and delivers builds that credibility back. Every one that doesn’t erodes it further.
The infrastructure for the next phase is being built — smart contracts went live on Polkadot Hub two weeks ago, and JAM has 14 teams building implementations. Whether the governance keeps pace is up to us.