Developers can allocate the remaining 80% however they think will allow them to outmaneuver their competition.
...
This will take a Big War Chest.
Let's not make the assumption that accumulating any amount of resources is too much.
Hmm, so this is an interesting question for you. What do you think the balance is between pleasing AGS/PTS holders and raising funds by IPO (basically what is the ideal value of x in my previous post)? On one hand, pleasing AGS/PTS holders gives the DAC a strong initial community support which can pay off in terms of marketing. On the other hand, more capital can be used to fund development, legal costs, and also marketing. Furthermore, an IPO buys you a great community of initial supporters as well, and in fact, I would argue it is better support (stronger hands) than AGS/PTS holders because they are self-selected during the IPO. Should x = 0? I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely wondering what the ideal distribution is for an economically rational (not altruistic) DAC creator.
That brings up another point: getting the blessing and support of I3 is a huge deal (especially in these early stages) and allocating the minimum 10% to AGS/PTS is a way of getting that, but what exactly is I3's gain in providing support to third-parties who do this, considering the fact that I3 is not holding a huge stake of AGS and PTS? Actually is that even correct? I know you guys converted BTC to BTSX, but are you still holding huge amounts of PTS, and if so, what is the advantage of doing that rather than dumping it for more BTSX and then optionally buying stake in only the interesting DACs through the IPO just like everyone else.
Now these are the kinds of questions I like to see people asking!
Each developer has to ask herself, "when I make this move, what move does that leave my competitor."
In the absence of any other factors, if I do 40/40/20 will my competitor do 48/48/4?
So let's look at COB's latest breakdown: 35/35/20/10
What will a competitor do to make a clone competitive? Will doing 45/45/0/10 win over all the support from this community? Will promising not to do further rounds of dilution help?
Let's suppose a competitor tries that. Now there are BitShares Music and ACME Music competing. Everybody here has shares in both. Some will sell their ACME to buy more BitShares and some will do the opposite. Depends on who they think has the stronger hand (or, sadly, depends on some non-economic philosophical bias.)
Let the games begin.
Now Cob deploys his weapons:
He has the BitShares brand (shows you who's business model we believe in)
)
He has the funds he was able to raise via pre-sale which keeps him ahead on innovation and marketing.
He has the ability to make teaming deals with potential partners and artists using some of those funds.
He has the ability to attract Big Elephants via dilution-based mergers.
And he has Eddie and his experience, contacts, and vision.
Now, the question for Cob is, is it worth giving one or two of those advantages over to his competitors by not including them himself?
Remember, whatever he doesn't do is left for his competitor to beat him with. He gets to pick first.
All in all, I think Cob has dealt himself a winning hand. Should he give up pre-sale bitcoins to increase the loyalty of our members from 35 to 45? Will his competitor team with Apple while he keeps an unwise promise not to dilute?
Leave that hand for his struggling competitors to play.