ETHKL24 | Yufei Zhang, GCC Co-host | Public Goods Funding: Sustainability and Impact Measuring

yeah just like yeah we can just have like a random chat on anything that we want to talk about yeah nice yeah well uh thanks so much and thanks so much for the two presentations I really like the direction to make the initiatives and projects of public goods more kind of socially focused and coming from an intention to create an impact and make things a little better uh you also mentioned that kind of this is something that resonated with me that public goods in itself as a as a term is a little bit fuzzy yeah right and um how how did you experience that so far and like what um like is it fair to say that it's almost like a more like a perspective like a like a like an approach to building as opposed to like a thing in itself yeah so the way I've used the term public good is like um it can be interpreted as an agenda or something like that so it's like a trying to uh very uh vague word as is meant to be a vague word but there are also things that can be done like very concretly and uh in detail for example if you say I want to F public goods that's a very big picture and nobody knows what you're really doing but you say we're collecting on documentations on how to build a like let's say an open source Community how to like promote the day-to-day Communications how we are going to um make the funding more effective and that's the concrete things uh that we can do so um my uh approach or my um uh motivation is like that uh we are trying to avoid saying more of the uh more of public goods but instead trying to nail down to specific thing that we're doing right now so yeah so public is also it's an approach and the thing we're doing but in terms of practice we can like use like less uh vague words and more concrete words to describe it yeah yeah cool interesting have you or um what what okay I think it's on I might just have to has to shout just to shout a little bit um I I think it's a it's a great question so right now uh I was just like speaking to Andre and I think he asking me about whether this is a more philosophical more like a mindset uh sort of concept rather than you know like a building category right so uh CU I I I guess uh as I mentioned so public goods is not something too new um I think it's like just trending recently with web 3 due to the idea that basically right now it's not just going to be I think like with the traditional public goods it's more about the government uh you know kind of being the Big Brother giving like feeding everyone supporting everyone now that public goods is actually open up for everybody to come in they can build they can donate they can fund uh the public goods which I think is it's a great thing and um for to me um I think the the uh the mindset is definitely something very important like how you're going to be actually designing the public goods um whereas some sometimes as I mentioned people are doing public goods without even knowing it so like Educators uh Community Builders uh whenever they come to these terms and especially the newbies they will always be like am I eligible for public goods funding meaning that um you know basically I think this kind of concept kind of creates this um boundaries and kind of putting people um like what we experienced in the old days it's not about the use case and the output but it's more about how we start and I think maybe that's not the right approach I would definitely also want to go with something less fuzzy than public goods maybe like thinking about what you can create but the impact that you can do and then basically we can uh have a better uh more quantitative uh idea of how you actually creating the impact how would you make give people more confidence to start with things so um I I think well yeah basically honestly my my first hand experience is to submit for like a rgf uh kind of uh like campaign I think by arbitrum and so on and then basically I I think we also kind of look back at the way that they are doing this and my experience is was like so it's not like very friendly to those who are new to the space like um if you actually already in the ecosystem and you do this and you know it then basically of course it's not it's not like rocket science right but then it's kind of let's say for new people who are just like starting to come in and they would just be like oh I want to start doing something good something impactful for the community and I think that's where maybe the uh I think that's where where the confusion lies you know and uh especially some of those times uh you don't actually know where to start and you don't know how to actually kind of monitor or plan your things out to be able to meet the the criteria and so on so um I think some of the more the qf for instance I think it's great because you actually have the community to come in and they actually like what you are doing they don't care about what you have done before uh they don't care about your experience whether you are gymnastic you are like a maxi for certain ch but they just like the idea they think that they can be part of it and they can actually kind of contribute to it and I think that that should be how we involve the community more yeah nice thank you you you've seen a lot of people also outside of the developer scene kind of getting involved and starting to build things how did that look or like where um how would you from your experience describe how people kind of got attracted into the kind of building space and just generally like starting to work things yeah so uh you mention how people are G track this so this is another thing I think the public is is really um uh building uh the missing part so uh still as today in the web most of the people joining the industry uh I think large B of like um monetary incentives but within the open source world where at least when I I joined the open source world uh so their like uh motivation was largely based on uh social and like uh honor or credit because they don't I think the number is like 90% or 80 80% of the open source developers in the web tour world does not get a direct funding or like a grants but there they can be like uh get a good job by contributing to open source projects then get to new friends and similar like jigs that they uh share the same uh interest in the uh technology and they're just like doing things like by um by like P lot of love I'm not saying this is sustainable it also can cause a lot like trauma and and you know sometimes you feel like burn out because you don't get paid for what you're doing but still like I think the larger uh the open source Community is really largely driven by like interest and I think that's a good part because um still in uh in the real life cases where like we see a lot of like uh pop up cities and real life communities what really attracts people there is like uh one example I want to mention is pagota is like the vibe there is really good it's just not just it's not only about web but it's also about life itself you don't so uh and monitoring incentive is a is one thing it's a great thing to have but still out of that you have like multi dimensional and things other than that you can like enjoy and you can get from those experiences so I think this is where the public founding is really um building up the missing part it's like the all the other incentives so the honor the social and the like the uh the the the feeling of ownership the feeling of building something that can attract more people into this EOS system yeah that's my answer nice cool have you seen people in kind of doing you you mentioned like Educators for example or like healthcare workers in that kind of Realm with that behavior um how um how how would you encourage people to take action to kind of follow their ition or their intention um I I think uh well youup has mentioned quite a few points I think um yeah number one uh it's great to know or it's great to be able to do something Beyond uh what you are paid for um I think with pagota I'm also in the pagota group so I understand the feeling um I just kind of wish that this kind of spirit this kind of mindset can be educated to more people because honestly as Asians I mean sometimes we cannot really demand that everyone can think beyond what they're going to be eating today you know uh because Asia definitely inherently we've been through so much uh instability like you know War um economic downturn and everything and it's actually like a very diverse economy as well it's a very diverse region so it's like we have so much like Gap so much like kind of difference in terms of cure and even when we are doing web3 in Asia it also means so much different and so much more challenging than let's say launching a in let's say Europe or launching public goods in Europe or in the US where I kind of think that the the population or the demographic is a bit more homogeneus and more like kind of you know kind of um have the same mentality and the same mindset so I think for some of the the current kind of Community Builders and so on I think uh of course like giving them the rewards but I think like just enough rewards um I think at this point because people still have to pay the bills right I think uh what we are doing right now with Aid is that I think we cannot claim that we are free for everybody we don't have the resource to help everybody we have some certain resources to serve the people and then we also have some certain kind of business or directions that we will need to kind of have enough um resource to be able to support what we are doing and that's where we would need to show and be transparent for the people to come in and if they can see that they can participate in the governance and kind of help with that I think that's when we can actually kind of you know maintain like or self- sustain which I think is definitely more important uh as the public goods commun Community or Builder is there like a difference that you can see between Asia and uh the West in that approach I think I mentioned about the incentive driven and the mission driven uh the mindset which is like very different in between um the west and the East um that's what has kept us survive has what you know kept us survive through the wars and everything you know you have to be practical about what you're going to do what you going to eat tomorrow yeah and now that we are coming to this stage where as I mentioned uh if we're talking about holiday in in Asia there's actually no kind of toal holiday I think especially in web 3 but I mean in Europe for instance I've heard that my friends there if they are holiday they are on proper holiday you cannot reach them no way you can like text them or whatever they're definitely going to follow the rules whereas in Asia would be like Oh I'm going to be off the grid but not like tonally Off the Grid so you can reach me through this uh Channel when there's some urgent kind of task list and yeah that's How The Story Goes so yeah so it's it's very different um but here I think in Asia yes uh we practical we are incentive driven and uh we will need to take some time to think more about the bigger Mission before we can actually you know kind of uh change the mindset in that directions yeah nice that seems a bit more sustainable in some way or is it like in some way yes in some way in in what way is it not or some way uh I mean you can maybe uh debate or argue about this I think in some way it's a good start for the let's say for Founders right if you have an Asian kind of Founders Asian developers AB buers of the team we would definitely have to move forward so we would just keep moving forward you know to do what it takes for the project to survive and that gives like a very good momentum the beginning but thinking more about the long term so let's say if you want to have like a impactful product if you want to kind of create you know future impacts we need someone like maybe balance out like maybe like a western founder to come in and kind of really kind of have a more longer vision how we're going to be getting there so yeah that's interesting and that's also like I think or from my experience one of the biggest issues in the open source community in general that the project in the beginning seems super like exciting like a new puppy and then and then people realize oh it's a full grown dog what are you going to do with that um e how do you how do you think can that be like I guess through a combination of technology and social movement um do you see a way of making that more sustainable in the long run so I yeah I think that for open source projects is a like um it's like a like a controversial uh opinion I have so uh I think that open sour should be based on interest and some if you feel like the project does not go on and the it just does not go on forever or you lose interest and nobody wants to take over I think it's like the right time to Sunset it uh I think there's like a famous example where the core JS author that's been like mentioned so many times in the open source world that the author basically like spent a lot of like time and a lot of energy and he even got himself in the jail because he couldn't afford to pay the like fine or something yeah but basically uh at that point I think that you should let people know that open source is not free is not like a responsibility of the developer it's their interest and their hobby not their burden they don't have to maintain it or they don't have to so if you want to use it you want to make it sustainable there is something you need to like uh you to pay like attention to them for example given a donation or given a funding to them I think that arise a lot of question but uh in terms of General sustainability I think it's uh there are already many uh like um best practice so uh there is some commercials that leave behind the open project especially those big projects so those company will be a major part of the developing uh community and they also donate some they are sponsor some the events and the day daily operation uh tasks of those foundations and people are being aware of that and it's also good to their Fame because it's a demonstration of how the are their uh skills in the area they like technical power and in terms of deciding where the community or the technology STX goes so it's also in the company's interest to um uh go that way yes so that's what happens in the web true world so big names like Amazon Google big names in Alibaba Huawei they all like um they they they pay more attention to the open stores because it's in their interest to do so yeah right do you know how they like when they pay attention to the development of these projects how they recognize for example something that might be impactful or useful for them how they recognize teams or maybe even nurture them MH yeah I think that's really good question because um uh uh so I think there is like a just best practice in some of the um foundations for example Apachi they have a really like a well I think apach is a really great example for all the web three um communities to learn from they have a lot of resources and their like philosophy how they run Community how they think they can succeed in creating a beautiful uh working and impactful uh software so what what they want to do is like so they have like uh the earned Authority policy so basically it's like okay if you contribute more to the code you have a good technical taste and then you can just like naturally gain more respect from the entire community and you can tell from the G commits you can tell from the pr you can tell from the mailing list discussions and you just can't instantly see who is like driving this project and who's like making the big decisions who has the most strong like technical skills that can make up the patch so I think it's a process that's um if you are running a community in a way it should be and the things just will pop out the good talents will just show up and the good projects will show itself and the community will give you feedback on what they believe is going to be the right direction so basically so if you have really a strong like fundamental community and the set of like best practices the vibe and everything else is just natural to the way yeah awesome thank you so much uh unfortunately we're at time so we have to wrap up Nicole would you like to share anything else or do you have any thoughts no I think it's uh I think we we just all agree that uh having more trust with the community might be vital you know to make this happen it doesn't have to be a public goods I think it might be Community Goods or something which might make it more better so that we don't have to make it like a public assets or something that is not driven by the government so I think in that term will might be better amazing thank you so much Nicole you thank you Andre thank you Nico thank you