I agree. The concept of self-governing is only marketable to those few users who like to "check under the hood" to see how the magic is achieved and if there are any flaws.


As for development priorities, I think it is a matter of perspective.  The governance is only 10% of the ever-decreasing block reward, which is only the currency's emission of new coins, not its entire supply.  So that's only 10% of what, 11% annual inflation now?  How much importance does this micro-economy deserve, given its relative monetary value?

If my math is right, Dash's internal governance ecosystem is only about 1% of Dash's annual supply--and that's going to decrease over time as the currency matures. I tend to agree with tok and others that when too much effort is seen being put on developing Dash's self-funded/community-directed management system, it could send the wrong message because the goal is to get the outside economy to use Dash.

I think what we're running into here is the fact that self governance is really new, and is something nobody else has ever done before, so it is garnering an inordinate amount of effort and attention.  I do not think our priorities have shifted, but rather we're temporarily expending extra effort to hammer down this small part of the system so development on the larger more important parts (anonymity, usability, etc) can get turbo-charged.

Additionally, it looks like the governance tools being developed might also be available for end-users of Dash, as in for anyone who holds Dash and wants to pay a contractor or employee for work.  If this is true, then we can rationalize this development effort as not only long-term support infrastructure investment for Dash itself, but also as infrastructure for Dash's usability in the real-world economy.