I believe it’s absolutely necessary to continue funding the ECC past the expiring Founders Reward.
As stated before, the ECC’s funding has gone towards paying salaries during a bear market, diminishing the purchasing power of the FR over the last year. From what I’ve seen, the ECC doesn’t have multi-digit millions stored up for future development, and there is continued protocol-level work that absolutely must be done if we want Zcash to succeed long term.
Would we rather this development be funded by the community via a continued (modified) block reward or would be prefer outside investors?
Personally, it’s my current opinion that we need to make this happen from within to avoid potential outside conflicts of interest. I also believe that the community governance panel should become the final and binding determiner of what changes will take place moving forward.
As you can tell from @joshs post The ECC continues to be well intentioned with high ideals. They’ve also shown a steady commitment to transitioning assets to the Zcash Foundation over time.
It’s important to remember that Zcash is still in its infancy. The fruits of this work may not be seen for many years despite volatile exchange rate movements due to speculation.