Go Fork Yourself - Not Boring by Packy McCormick

Companies can’t fork. DAOs can. Companies can’t easily swap equity with each other. DAOs can. Companies don’t treat their governance as a form of participatory entertainment and social network building (although maybe some activists do). DAOs can.

The recent debate over use cases in crypto has laid bare a hard truth: web3 isn’t as good at doing the things that web2 companies do as web2 companies are. That’s fine. Of course people aren’t impressed by DAO governance, and rightly point out that it’s just a messier implementation of ideas that already exist; recreating existing structures on-cha... See more

Because ultimately, this is the promise of forking: to get people to disagree and then find their subcommunity where they're aligned and can create their own version of a project. Good governance is, in effect, a kind of web3 social network—the basis of social graphs for people to find others who share their interests and pursue those in communitie... See more

Gamifying governance means that the point of governance is no longer the outcome that we arrive at, but the process of governance itself—just like the point of playing a game is to play the game itself.

Think about Twitter here or any other major web2 social networks. They’re kind of governance platforms. Each like is a vote on content to express that you approve it, would like to see more content like it, and would like others with your interests to see it as well. What is crucial is that these networks institutionalize the two major components o... See more

In other words, internet-native governance is no longer just a reflection of decisions but a process of decision-making itself that actively builds relationships, gets people excited about shared goals, and increases the probability of completing these goals successfully. In that sense, the key part of governance to measure isn’t the vote, but the ... See more

Most (if not all) governance mechanisms in crypto today revolve around some sort of implementation of the one-token-one-vote concept, akin to token-weighted direct democracy or shareholder democracy.

Viewed through that lens, governance mechanisms might become less defensive – focused less on protecting against hacks that threaten the entire DAO – and more offensive and fun – focused more on governance as a means of entertainment, social discovery, and propagation.

The real promise of DAO governance might be forking: using governance to get people to disagree and through the process, discover subcommunities where they're aligned and create their own version of a project. Forking, in that sense, is the ultimate form of decentralization. And it enables governance to become the basis of social graphs where peopl... See more