One of my metaphors for why the Dev Fund is not good for Zcash is because it is in affect creating a Pentagon budget situation.
(Over its 8 years) It incentivizes/d over-spending and make-work activities that ultimately didn’t add correlative value to Zcash (see relative network use, ecosystem size, and ZEC chart).
The Pentagon is famous for finding exciting ways to demand and spend more money, yet do Americans really feel safer each year? Is all of this spending on war institutions positively increasing America’s perception around the world? Is Zcash the crypto equivalent to the F-35?
Spend it or Lose it also comes to mind, it is a budgeting and planning pitfall that is known to hurt organizations financially and productively.
Whenever ZEC is freely distributed to the big 3, they’re effectively forced to spend as a means of demonstrating some ongoing productive effort.
The block reward (more broadly referred to as the Devtax by crypto natives) should be acknowledged as a widely known and negatively perceived meme - this is bad for Zcash. We as a community should be forming ideas and actions that can become positive and simply digested memes about Zcash (for example: Privacy Is Normal, Zcash Media content, HTTP Bitcoin/ HTTPS Zcash)