I have to say, I agree with @joshs here. It’s not clear to me at all, what problem the cap is solving.
Volatility reserves:
Let’s remember that both the ECC and ZF already have a large incentive to build up reserves to withstand volatility. History has shown us that ZEC price is very volatile, so it makes sense for everyone to build up volatility reserves. Adding additional encumbrances for something that is already incentive aligned seems like complexity we don’t need.
ZEC Price:
I don’t think it makes sense for us, as a community, to worry what will happen if Zcash is too successful/ ZEC price will appreciate too much. This is a problem we very much want to have.
If this comes to pass, we should let ECC / ZF / developers decide how they want to handle it - Whether it be build up ZEC reserves, build a USD volatility reserve or spend more on developers or marketing.
Accountability
We can already fire ECC / ZF / Developer if any of them gets captured / doesn’t deliver results via mechanisms that are well understood - Removing funding, hard forking, or simply exiting Zcash.
Complexity is the enemy of good incentive design. Adding a funding cap creates, in my opinion unnecessary complexity, solving problems that don’t exist.
We very much want the ECC / ZF / developers to be incentive aligned. A cap unnecessarily limits upside.
One last point:
It is very much true that the market for talent is very very competitive. I know of, first hand, people working on FB and Google Ads that are making > $1M a year. The reality is that this is the market we’re competing in.
Good software is hard - and we need to offer large upside to attract developers to Zcash in an incentive-aligned way.