Just a big thank you to you Josep, and your awesome team. What is happening here is absolutely insane.
Invisible negotiations in a decentralized space are not faithful to Polkadot’s principles.
We talk about transparency, humanity, respect, decentralization.
I’m not a developer, but from a human perspective, I see two camps clashing:
One fighting for its survival, the other for the recognition of its value.
Both struggles are legitimate. What’s worrying for Polkadot and the ecosystem is that there can’t be conflicts of this magnitude on a boat without it sinking.
You understand: we’re going to have to find common ground. I’d like to read that the Web3 Foundation is rethinking its position, and I’d like to read that the PAPI team says, “Yeah, times are tough, let’s make one last effort.”
If each side takes one step forward, it reduces the distance to agreement and prosperity by a factor of 2. If one party makes a public, well-argued effort without the other responding, that would be a lack of respect.
But please, negotiate, negotiating means finding common ground, and that’s the only path to prosperity; otherwise, we will all fail.
This won’t benefit anyone. Be worthy of Polkadot and this applies to everyone: the Web3 Foundation, the PAPI team, me, and every one of us.
We are already in early discussions with some stakeholders for an alternative proposal.
No promises on where this will lead, but as we stated repeatedly, we have been always open to adjusting scope, rates and budget where appropriate.
The main issue in the negotiations with the W3F Governance team was the opaque, multi-layer structure, which basically turned the process into a game of telephone. We spent 2 months negotiating just so that at the last day before submitting it, they suddenly demand to cut the cost by 66%, with 0 justification. Just “the committee’s stance is that this is your rate”.
We’re now attempting to engage directly with the stakeholders that ultimately take the go / no-go decision, in hope that a more direct process can lead to a constructive resolution.
honestly, after reading through the examples, they kind of reinforce my original concern more than they resolve it.
if the strongest evidence is a handful of tools most users never actually interact with, that’s the signal. real adoption is obvious because people feel it, not because someone has to list it or rally support for it.
that’s why my question was never “does anything use it.” clearly some things do. the real question is whether current real world reliance matches the level of recurring treasury funding being requested.
this would put total support at over $2.25M, and for that level of allocation the adoption case should be unmistakable, not something that has to be pieced together.
if the value is as obvious as you say, it should be easy to secure support elsewhere. markets validate value faster than debates.
The treasury simply doesn’t have the funds to support such expensive projects every year.
“And I don’t think maintaining a TS metadata wrapper worth so high salary.”
I think W3F has started to work.