RE: Would DAO/SPS proposals based on an "Advance" funding model be supported?
I'm not sure I understand this correctly although I do understand the book / music publishing model so hopefully I'm not off the mark with my thoughts...
I think the context of writing books and getting "paid in advance" works because authors need to live whilst writing - the equivalent model for an author, using the SPS approach, would be that the author gets this advance on a weekly interval (or hourly in the case of the DAO). Which would probably offer the publisher a bit more protection if the author quits or fails to deliver. From the publishers point of view, they'll do this to secure the services of a prominent author / musician and get themselves the exclusivity. Would Steemit need this exclusivity?
In the case of DAO projects, it's possible that the "proposer" would require a large, up-front lump-sum - whether that's to recruit a team, advertise or something else. Admittedly, this is still possible with a short-term, high-value proposal.
For me, this up-front model shifts all of the risk to the platform and away from the proposer - equivalent to a company paying a salary in advance, rather than in arrears. It's obviously safer for the company to do the latter, giving them more control.
So without some convincing, it would be a no-go in my opinion... assuming I've understood the concept.
Yes.
IMO Steem isn't getting anybody "prominent". I think we should be focusing on ways to make this place viable for people willing to come here, because it is not today. (My not-so-hidden ulterior motive is to explore whether there's a way someone like me could get funding for anything, my impression is that I couldn't in the current environment.)
I didn't intend to put the focus on the idea of large up-front sums. I was trying to add the "DAO gets some of the creator's rewards back" onto the current "Creator gets funds from DAO" model.
This part is intrinsic to the DAO proposal model. The intention was to see if this was less 'risky' to the platform than the standard way of running a DAO proposal.
I’d recommend speaking to steemchiller to see what appetite there is for your idea. If you have his trust and support, many of the big accounts will follow.
I think I understand the concept more now - it’s less from a developer/marketing perspective but more from a “prominent author” perspective. Where Steemit’s essentially contracting somebody they want to acquire with an up-front payment that is slowly recouped. Hence your reference to the book/music publishing industry.
I’d be inclined to say it’s more risky since the money’s already gone. Using my proposal as an example, if I down tools / leave the platform, the DAO can stop payments whereas if Steemit was recouping the same figure from author rewards, it would never retrieve them. If I stayed and had repaid my debt, the platform would have to keep taking a cut to make their risk / change of approach worthwhile… much like a publisher owns the rights to a novel / album and pays the author / artist royalties. Then you could argue that the author would be better of reinventing themselves with a different username. I’m confusing myself now but hopefully my thoughts make sense.
No, it's from a "proposals are unlikely to be approved today, what could increase the appeal of a proposal?" perspective.
No, please don't get hung up on this "up-front payment" thing, that's not what I'm talking about. (Also, if we're hypothetically talking about funding writing rather than code development the output of the writer is much more likely to be showing up on the chain in a way that can be evaluated on an ongoing basis than a coding project where the developer can plausibly claim to be doing things but not be ready to release the code yet).
No, it's the same. If you disappear you keep the money and never provide the deliverables. If the hypothetical person running a proposal where they promise to do something and also pay some money to the DAO disappears they keep the money and never provide the deliverables. There is no way that "plain vanilla proposal + pay $X to the DAO" is more risky than "plain vanilla proposal", even in the worst case scenario where X is 0.