I support the Season 7 intent and the dev tooling mission, but Iām voting against the onchain builders mission.
I would like to share my rationale here.
Season 7 intent
I support the strategic goal of interoperability.
Dev tooling mission (retro funding)
This funding was already promised in 2024 (RF7 was postponed), and Optimism should obviously stay true to that promise. Also, open source dev tooling is a reasonable partial target of retroactive public goods funding.
Onchain builders mission (retro funding)
Firstly, rewarding (ie. incentivizing) all onchain activity regardless of its purpose or underlying structures does not seem right to me, but rather irresponsible. Without human review there is no guard against negative externalities - not even a guarantee of positive impact beyond economic growth. This is not public goods funding. It does not invite a phoenix that I would like to come for me.
Secondly, onchain builders were heavily supported in 2024, in RF4 (10M OP). Other important contributers were passed over. I understand the wish to focus and refine before broadening out, but if retroactive public goods funding is to have any meaning, Optimism should be supporting a range of public goods. What a public good is, is obviously contentious - which is why we need humans to be guiding the process.
For more context, see also my reflections on the voting process in the previous onchain builders round, RF4.