Hi @lordbutterfly ,

I think it's a great topic to discuss, there has been abuse in the past as you pointed out, and that's all the more reason why we should strive to be transparent in our work.
At Keychain we do this by:

• Keeping our work opensource (it's all on Github)
• Post regular development updates, both on Hive and on X

Checking Github activity is a good way to make sure there is work being done, but development updates are as important IMO, if not more because there is always a lot of other work that happens behind the scenes that can't be measured in terms of commits (DevOps, support, testing, working with designers, hiring, onboarding dApps to use our new features, etc.)

At the moment, we are three developers working full-time on our ever-expanding list of projects, we also have a CM, hired a design team to refactor our UI/UX, and are looking to hire a new dev full-time. We also have infrastructure costs and a legal entity that also costs money.

Because some silent critics have been making claims that we are paying 3-10x what we should be paying for some developers.

Well, I think this can only be true if some are receiving money and are not working on what they promised. Otherwise, I think most of the proposals (divided by the number of devs) are way below the industry standards in terms of salaries.

dApps should be self-sufficient

I'm not quoting you but I saw some comments saying something similar. I used to think the same at the beginning of the DHF and ended up changing my mind. The thing is, we don't have enough users at the moment to make profitable dApps, and to get users you need money. So the question is, do we want to incubate these projects? Or should they go for external funding that will likely drive them away from Hive?

To illustrate that, we currently have the same potential money-making mechanisms as any other wallet out there, but with Hive userbase, if we were to implement the same fees as Metamask on the swap features and fiat on-ramp, we would barely make enough to pay for infra and the company physical costs, let alone any dev salary.

Of course, I'm not saying we should randomly fund everything and just hope for the best. It's up to every voter to have a due diligence process before voting. I usually look at the following:

• Track record
• Feasibility
• Impact
• Cost / size of the team
• Clear deliverables
• Is the project opensource?