The Part of OpenGradient That Made Me Think About Control
A few days ago I was looking at OpenGradient again.
I was not looking at OpenGradient because of an announcement.
I was not looking at OpenGradient because of rewards.
I was looking at OpenGradient because I wanted to know where the important decisions actually come from.
A lot of crypto projects say they are about decentralization. When you look at them for a long time you notice something.
The system might look open. A small group of people still make most of the important decisions.
OpenGradient seems to be trying to solve this problem in a way.
What I noticed about OpenGradient was not what it lets people do.
It was what OpenGradient does not try to control.
This might sound simple. It creates some interesting problems.
When the people in charge of OpenGradient do not control much it becomes harder for them to make everything work together.
OpenGradient might grow slowly.
The people in charge of OpenGradient might have a time making decisions.
The people using OpenGradient might do things that nobody expected.
Maybe this is the real test of OpenGradient.
If OpenGradient only works when a small group of people are always in charge then is OpenGradient really as open as people think it is?
I keep thinking about what OpenGradient will look like when it's ten times bigger than it is now.
Will OpenGradient still work well?
Will the people using OpenGradient still have the incentives?
Will power and influence be shared among a lot of people. Will it go back to being controlled by a small group like it does in other places?
Now these questions are more important to me than any news about OpenGradient.
The interesting thing is not whether OpenGradient gets bigger.
The interesting thing is what happens if OpenGradient gets bigger without needing someone to always be in control of it.
I am talking about OpenGradient because I want to know more, about OpenGradient.
OpenGradient is the thing that made me think about control in a way.