None of what I said is personal. I think you know that.

Yes, I didn't take it personally, just pointing out that I don't derive any personal profit from DHF proposals. While I know you've been around long enough to know that, there are a lot of new people that may read this discussion and not know that, so I often write for them as well as the person I'm directly replying to.

And while I think your view of the DHF is overly pessimistic, I do understand your point that people are more likely to fund proposals by people they know (which are also more likely to be friends, at least of a collegial sort, even if not typically close in-real-life friends).

But I've voted for proposals of people I've never met, or even interacted with, in the cases where their proposal seemed potentially beneficial. Nonetheless, it is also true that most of such proposals didn't get funded, despite my vote, and that is likely in part to due to the fact that the proposers didn't have enough interactions with other stakeholders to generate sufficient trust.

Speaking from experience, I can say you generally need to have a lot of those same types of interactions with venture capitalists to get funding from them. It's the exception, not the rule, when someone gets funded without stakeholders taking some time to get to know them and judge their mettle.

DHF proposals tend to have a higher bar to get funded, as opposed to ICOs, where people chase tokens with only the slightest regard for who the team behind the project is simply because of FOMO. On the whole, I think the DHF is a more efficient mechanism as far as achieving productive work, and with the limited funding available to Hive, I think that is necessary.

I don't think you need any assistance to get a project going that you want going.

That wasn't always true, but it is true now, at least in terms of financing (finding the right skill sets can still be a challenge though).