Recently reviewed a few DAO proposals, and the more I look at it, the more it seems that voting isn’t really “everyone deciding together,” but rather “whoever has incentives written more smoothly.” Some proposals look like they’re building public goods, but when you dig into the budget and allocation, the core is actually to lock voting power into a particular small circle: add subsidies to delegates, give extra weight to core contributors, raise the cost of casting “no” votes… It’s democracy on the surface; underneath, the power structure is reinforcing itself.

The same goes for airdrop season. The task platform fends off anti-sybil efforts while running a points-based system, and token-harvesting crowds show up like they’re clocking in for work—only for the points to end up back in the hands of “the people who are better at organizing.” Even my counterpart complained to me: “You watch voting every day like you’re doing an audit—can you not be so conspiracy-minded?” …I want to, too, but the on-chain data is right there. The way the proposals are written is basically just a way of filtering people. Anyway, when I look at voting now, I first see who gets paid, who gets the power, and who bears the risk—then I decide whether to go along.