Decentralization is why we fight for crypto

So how do we incentivize decentralization?

Incentives will only get as far as the incentives go, but how do you really motivate for decentralization? People should be deeply convinced it is absolutely necessary. Hope Kiwi can educate a bit :)

Another fluff piece about walking the walk, but not talking the talk.

@mishaderidder.eth, rightly so. Incentives are fun, but fundamental decisions and systems designed to not collapse in oligopolies are "funner".

Tbh having a solid law supporting decenetralization would be useful, especially in the US where lawyers are expensive. I've heard from some a16z friends that a big part of the startups' raised capital goes to legal fees which is pretty absurd.

@mac, you do not want to know how many tens of Ks my startup paid in lawyer fees to incorporate and to shut down. Almost 2 months of runway down the drain.

Sorry to hear that!

Speaking of law adding friction to running business, I once heard an anecdote from the director of the Polish Embassy in the US.

Once he became responsible for business affairs, he received many complaints from Polish companies operating in the US. They said they were constantly sued for no reason, which discouraged them from opening US offices.

So the guy went to the US officials to solve the problem. He recaped the complaints he heard, and the officials listened carefully. After he finished his last sentence, they responded:

"So why do your companies have such a small legal budget? If you want to run a business in the US, you can't save on lawyers"

@mac, oh wow. Cold and accurate.

US tech bros make fun of the europoor, but aren't mandatory lawyers and insurance another word for tax?

100%. I think smart contracts might leapfrog some of these old laws and reduce the tx costs from high legal bills to low gas fees.

Of course, it would only work for some types of transactions, but it is pretty amazing that Aave can serve thousands of people globally without signing any paperwork and without adapting the T&C to each jurisdiction's law.

Re: Europoors, I was once wondering what's the real disposable income in the US once you deduct lawyers, insurance, private schools (since public schools suck) for kids and so on. Haven't found any data on that but that might be interesting.