I would echo what Eran said above about incentives. They have a powerful effect on people’s perceptions of reality. It’s unavoidable — that’s just human nature.
Also, what Josh wrote in June:
My concern is not that the Electric Coin Company does subvert Zcash to serve its own interests; my concern is that the ECC would be able to do so.
You could swap out “Electric Coin Company” for “Zcash Foundation” or any other entity (or special interest group) that has substantial influence over Zcash, now or in the future.
Zcash governance is more decentralized than it used to be, and I’m concerned about that trend reversing. I understand why commenters on this forum and other community members feel like they are disempowered relative to ECC and ZF. That’s just true!
Before anyone jumps on me: We shouldn’t shy away from acknowledging the problems that we’re working to solve. I am not saying that ECC and ZF want the balance of power to be how it is. Again, quoting Josh:
It’s up to the Zcash Foundation, with the help of the Zcash community, to be the second party in the multisig model of Zcash governance. In the future, we hope there will be more! Bolt Labs, or Parity Technologies, or other businesses, or other nonprofits, or collectives of users, could be involved. The multisig model of Zcash governance is 2-of-2 right now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way forever.
As long as the same entities that govern disbursement of funds are also recipients, the conflicts of interest are substantial. Those conflicts of interest are both at play right now, given ECC and ZF’s control of the ZIP process.
Re: “collectives of users,” I’d love to see someone step up and organize one.
Anyway, you’re right that draft ZIPs don’t have to be perfect, so we can all continue debating this in the coming months 