Ripple (not really but in name) financiers have done well in collecting talented developers, keeping them well fed and locked up and preventing them from doing anything useful for humanity. "Here's a big screen. Make some silly icons or something. We need a new deck for our next round." Y'all got fiatted. You want to be remembered for cutting costs on interbank accounting of counterfeitables? Or are you going to get out there and do something interesting?
Developers can come and go as they please, but obviously they would like to do something revolutionary with their lives, like create the Internet of Value, that's what ripple is doing... ripple is not making alliances or friends with bankers, they serve big and small FIs. They are disrupting correspondent banking freeing up capital and providing global liquidity, providing remittances and micropayments. Taking the top down approach, but bottom up will come later. How about Interledger protocol, you don't think that a global payment standard is necessary?
If their devs or any others want to make a difference in the world they can volunteer and work for free rippleworks.org (Chris Larsen funded charity)
What is your idea of the internet of value, or have you not figured it out yet?