{"@context":{"CIP100":"https://github.com/cardano-foundation/CIPs/blob/master/CIP-0100/README.md#","hashAlgorithm":"CIP100:hashAlgorithm","body":{"@id":"CIP100:body","@context":{"comment":"CIP100:comment"}}},"hashAlgorithm":"blake2b-256","body":{"comment":"I have been raising this issue since governance went live, so I understand and accept the underlying problem. What I reject is the cheque being presented as the solution.\n\nThere is credible evidence of an incentive deficit. Active DRep participation is declining, voting power remains heavily concentrated, and unpaid governance predictably favors wealthy, institutionally supported, or commercially interested participants. A remarkable discovery, if one has somehow avoided observing how incentives work in real life.\n\nCardano needs compensated governance. That part is not controversial.\nWhat is difficult to justify is ₳4.2 million for a package consisting of research, modelling, engagement, data infrastructure, dashboards, administration, another paper, one controlled pilot, and a future CIP. **Apparently, after all these years, the ecosystem still requires a multimillion-ADA expedition to determine that people participate more consistently when participation is not entirely unpaid.**\n\nThe proposal itself acknowledges 49 related initiatives, alongside separately funded IOR work. Yet coordination is offered after approval, rather than a clear division of labour being agreed before the Treasury is asked to fund the programme. That is a very convenient sequence. It protects the scope of the proposal, while leaving the Treasury to discover later whether the work overlaps with anything already funded.\n\nThe commercial case is equally difficult to assess. Workstream totals tell us almost nothing about staffing levels and roles, day rates and contractor costs, pilot rewards, infrastructure expenditure, ownership of resulting assets and intellectual property, decision-making authority, measurable delivery milestones, and conditions for stopping or reducing expenditure. This ain't trivial and it's already sloppy not to address these items.\n\nLastly, there is the 12% contingency, worth ₳437k, added before the basic cost structure is visible. Contingency is sensible when the underlying budget is transparent and the risks are defined. Here, it risks functioning as a fee for uncertainty, paid in advance by the Treasury. How convenient.\n\n**Cardano needs compensated governance; it does not need ₳4.2 million to rediscover payroll and construct dashboards explaining why unpaid work is unpopular.**"}}