
trent.eth|Sep 04, 2025 14:46
~ challenges to funding eth common goods ~
Ethereum has low user switching costs, censorship resistance, permissionless access, composability, open standards, network effects.
The bar to leverage these characteristics to build services that make money is a lot lower than traditional infra; in the end, we get a market machine for common goods (eg. settlement, financial services, remittances).
It’s still early, but I believe that this will make rent-seeking difficult ie. lockin, moats, high fees are easier to route around. Ultimately, this is good for user welfare!
However, IMO it means the “rev share to public goods” models may require a lot more coordination (cycling btwn donors as margins fall) and # of entities/scale to be impactful. Or put differently, it's less likely we see the web2 model of "multinational with moat drips OSS patronage $" (eg. linux). Further, prospective funders range from pre-PMF co's with uncertain outcomes, to successful crypto-native projects fighting for every shred of market share, to large institutions. In each case, it's often difficult to justify diverting funding anywhere that isn't existential.
Staking operations will likely also experience this - the market machine offers a programmatic security budget that will compress over time as more parties show up.(trent.eth)
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