Thanks for asking what’s often seen as the elephant in the room.
I did touch on this in my original grant, and just to be clear in case you only skimmed this thread, my grant was approved and I’m several months into development.
First, know that I’m largely anti-VC based on my own experience and observations from the past few years. I think VCs are a good route to build tech fast, if they do not end up controlling it, the IP, or have direct power. They often blow up though, so the risk in some cases is more theoretical and principled. I might compare that with the AI wars we have now where everything is closed source in a few AI labs. The tech rapidly evolves, but it stays owned by the few.
Now. I know every VC crypto/web3/etc company does develop in the open thanks to the foundational ethos, but in exchange, they often find other means of control or keeping power or ROI’ing that’s not in the interests of the community.
This is not a hard rule that VCs are evil… But it is a guideline based on what I see as the crypto/web3 VC playbook, so there are going to be exceptions and good-faith VC-funded projects. But there are very few of them IMHO.
Due to this… and the fact I come from a Linux FOSS background in my views, I just rather avoid all that shit show altogether and stick to the community to ensure what we build is by and for the community.
So, I am doing things with the community giving me a chance to make their investment, if you want to call it that, give them something that can solve a LOT of issues with Sia and the wider ecosystem.
And yes, I am aware of a lot of Sia’s history, drama, etc. I was not involved in the early days but after a year of being initiated into the cult… I mean community (just kidding guys :P), I have found all of Sia’s skeletons and why Sia has had a rough decade.
That said, unlike what many seem to have made into a meme, sia being allergic to marketing, I am realistic and I straddle both the worlds of Web2 and Web3.
Sia to an extent, I see as always a background player, and marketed to bigger players, and power users, but not retail.
So as for the how? One large route is FOSS/grassroots marketing. By creating public good services that are also hosted on sia, or store data on sia… The project solves a number of wider issues that start with education. In the process, Lume Web as a brand creates awareness for our mission and starts the needed network effect.
This is why I have invested in many web3/blockchain and ICANN assets. Creating open, community-driven, and community-built resources that serve as onboarding for new users and those skeptical or frankly calling us all scammers, as well as advancing the education of those in the community by crowdsourcing those who can help, but that may not be devs.
I have already spent a good % of the foundation grant on a new project brand/logo, website, and 2 other marketing websites, one for users, and one for those who want to support/host the infra of the new web.
I have a lot more planned as well. I have long-term ideas too, but they can only happen once Lume is actually fully working.
As for the business model of Lume as a community-focused business, I will be starting at some point (no ETA) by simply offering web accounts (private data encrypted by your identity key, which I can never decrypt) on the portal for a small yearly fee, and scale the storage plans offered as the project grows. Eventually, it will be webapps (aka dapp) too.
So simply put, web3 hosting services.
This is one prong of sustaining the project long-term outside having grant funding.
The other is that I will be creating a web3 domain registry with assets that I have acquired on Handshake. This, of course, requires the tech to be stable for the domains to be useful, just like in the current web.
I may get other revenue streams from services, but that’s more of an unknown, unknown right now.
I have also disclosed all my plans on the longer-term business aspect to the foundation and gotten guidelines of what they are ok with. So I have been fully transparent with the community regarding my plans and actions.
I hope this answers your criticism, which based on Sia’s history, is warranted to ensure we don’t fall into the same traps with failed experiments and some community members who have left or are exiled due to their own actions.
Kudos!