In a few words, my criticism of ZODL is that they took money as investment from VCs that have aligned themselves with authoritarian interests in the public (US political funding), private (financial), and technological spheres. The impact of these interests is extremely wide ranging and harmful.
Though Shielded Labs was the first to publicly accept donations, ZODL definitively tied these forces into the fabric of Zcash. They have still not publicly commented on the association and re-packaging of the project under these terms, more or less decided exclusively by them. ZODL’s only indirect comment so far was essentially “you should have seen how bad it was under Biden,” as if that is sufficient justification.
These interests are now much enriched by ZODL’s actions, using Zcash as the vehicle.
I think it is ‘a terribly bad look’ for ZODL, and for Zcash as a whole, as their embrace of these forces has been unopposed and even unremarked upon (except by me, it seems).
It’s also a strategic error which is only beginning to show itself more clearly.
There’s also the whole capture question: who is really guiding this chain now?
Zcash is now associated with a political, ideological group that not only condemns other groups, but works to reduce their very freedom, safety, and privacy.
To see Zcash riding such a dystopian wave of corruption (and the concurrent systemic violence and loss of liberties) is upsetting - and extremely disappointing.
If you want more details, see some of my findings that were not in ZODL’s press releases: