I'M curious what those here think about this...should blockchain foundations

also strive to be 'decentralized' or is this only relevant to the underlying chain infra?

This is a sincere question that I think there are many answers to and opinions of.

https://twitter.com/Barnzooor/status/1727054627718471920

of course it's only relevant to the decision-making of the chain itself. the whole point of the foundation is to have an executive entity that is centralized but answers to the decentralized authority of the chain (i.e. the block producers), and therefore at least indirectly to the token holders

I view centralization vs. decentralization on a spectrum. You'd have to define the parameters, and define the objective, so that we could guage the degree required. A company with a CEO giving orders vs an elected board making decisions vs a handful of groups coming to concensus vs a series of individuals each executing on their own...what are we trying to accomplish? Having 1 foundation is already centralized in that sense, however decentralized the foundation is within. And even if there were a few, what would stop them from collaborating? Centralizing decision making once again. We tend towards efficiency, and therefore require stated goals. A foundation should be representative of the philosophical ideas of the interests it is trying to serve. You wouldn't expect PETA to sell animal skins.

Definitely agree on the spectrum bit, especially since the application of "decentralized" vs "centralized" can be so different. I guess my question is more about expectations of crypto community members. 10 yrs ago I think those in crypto cared a lot more about what it meant to disintermediate traditional structures and decentralize an ecosystem. That thinking applied to networks and their foundations alike. Today it would seem less and less care about these details. Governance is considered by some to be a hindrance to progress, and yet its poor governance that leads to failures like FTX and Luna. People have a funny habit of forming a normalcy bias and a strong desire to trust someone else to do the heavy lifting. Just look at our EOS community for example...how many joined this community bc they believed in the founders individually, and trusted that B1 would do much of the heavy lifting. My guess is those that believed both of these things to be true are the ones that are the most upset and disappointed today.

I'm enjoying your musings on comparative decentralization in blockchain ecosystems. Just one small issue with your last point when you bring up people trusting B1 would do much of the heavy lifting, it seems that there is a good deal of evidence that the community was actively prevented from doing the heavy lifting they wanted to, or developing structures it needed by that very same entity. One recent testimony from somebody who did a lot of heavy lifting himself, early on. https://t.me/EOSproject/2005006

Well that is an added complexity no doubt 😅. I'm more speaking to those that aren't builders per se, which were the majority in the early EOS days if I had to guess, and how they viewed things. We see this in other communities too, its not special to EOS.

Agreed. I think a lot of the "retail investors" in this space don't expect to need to be engaged to the degree that is required for a decentralized community to thrive. Many new people to both or either this space or investing, think this is like the stocks where you can buy some shares and sit back and let someone else do 99.9% of the heavy lifting. Easier, more participatory, and lower barriers to access governance were supposed to be features of blockchains not a hindrance to development. But voter apathy is real, and more so when there's a lack of transparency, misalignment of incentives, and not enough clarity around what needs to get done. If I had to give an answer as to expectations, I'd say they've become the same as the issues around onboarding the web2 users onto blockchain. That will be done through apps, therefore, blockchain is b2b, not b2c. The future of governance, likewise, will be, depending on the chain, b2b. There is/will be no real reason why someone will hold 1 EOS when using a workout2earn app or Amazon-like Marketplace, much less why someone with 1 EOS would care to vote. Likewise, why in the future, the only entities buying EOS, will be companies paying resource fees on-chain, and therefore the only ones interested in the governance of the chain.(assuming voting rights are still a characteristic of the EOS Token)