I am no different than anyone else in the community. It isn't like the combined
effort of the other 95% of stakeholders is doing significantly more for
BitShares than what I have personally funded over the past year. This is not to
downplay the efforts of other community members which have also made huge
contributions that are even more disproportionate than mine relative to their
stake.
The group trap is nothing but a prisoners dilemma where individuals profit more
by defecting than by contributing. If everyone defected then everyone would
lose, but if no one defected then everyone would profit more. Fortunately, we
have many people in the community, myself included, that do contribute to the
greater cause despite the group trap.
All I am doing is calling attention to the obvious fact that incentives are not
currently aligned.
This reminds me of a long lasting discussion of how to fund open source
development.
You guys know Angry birds, I guess. Did you also know that they used an open
source library for their spectacular physics engine and didn't 'invent' it on
their won? Would you belive that they paid ZERO to the developer of that
library?
Now guess what: The developer doesn't even complain because that is the WHOLE
IDEA of open source software.
It feels the same in Bitcoin and BitShares. Some invest time and money out of
curiosity and make the other's shares be worth more eventually. But in the end,
those that DO invest their time to LEAR and CONTRIBUTE get something worth more
and that is KNOWLEDGE and REPUTATION.
@bytemaster: do you think we can use the MAS concept to help the open source
community out of their usual funding issue? Lot's of small and great projects
have no means to fund their their work (even if it only was a THANKS token)