Season 2: Are we overlooking Decentraland’s most valuable contributors?
I would like to propose something for Season 2 that I think deserves serious consideration.
What is the most valuable asset a community like Decentraland can have?
There are probably several answers. Technology, infrastructure, content, funding, users, and developers are all important.
But I would argue that one of the most valuable and difficult assets to acquire is a relatively small group of people who become genuinely committed to the project over many years.
People who participate because they want to. Who build things nobody commissioned. Who experiment, fail, try again, create content, engage in discussions, participate in competitions, represent Decentraland in other communities, and continue contributing without expecting anyone to pay them.
They become part of the foundation of the community.
Imagine having a thousand people like this.
A thousand capable, independent individuals who genuinely care about Decentraland, continuously building, publishing, experimenting, promoting, discussing, and creating opportunities.
You would have an extraordinary amount of activity happening organically, without anyone needing to coordinate it.
But we don’t have a thousand of these people.
They are incredibly difficult to find because you cannot simply recruit this level of commitment. It develops organically, often over years.
Even having ten or twenty such people can make an enormous difference to a community.
Different levels of participation
I think most communities have several broad categories of participants.
There is a small core of deeply committed contributors who continually initiate activities themselves.
There is a wider group of active creators and participants who contribute regularly, often around particular interests or opportunities.
There are occasional participants who enjoy the community and join activities when something interests them.
And there is a much larger audience that primarily observes or participates occasionally.
All these groups matter.
But the first group plays a particularly important role because they generate activity independently. They create reasons for other people to participate.
So how do we protect and support these people?
The opportunity cost of commitment
I am going to use myself as an example because I know there are others here who work in a similar way.
Since returning to Decentraland roughly 90 days ago, I’ve been participating in contests, contributing to discussions, building experiences, experimenting with technical ideas, creating content, developing websites, working on discoverability, and engaging with other communities.
Sometimes I want to build a game. Sometimes I want to make videos, produce educational content, develop a website with thousands of pages dedicated to Decentraland, or explore an entirely new idea.
Nobody needs to assign these activities to me. I pursue them because I’m interested in the platform and believe there is something worth building here.
But all of this takes considerable time.
And like everyone else, I have competing professional opportunities and financial responsibilities.
At some point, that becomes an economic decision.
A person who spends hundreds or thousands of hours contributing to Decentraland is spending time they could have invested elsewhere.
Enthusiasm can sustain that commitment for a while. It cannot necessarily sustain it indefinitely.
I think we seriously underestimate the economic value of retaining people who have already demonstrated this level of commitment.
The contradiction in how we fund creators
We have structured programs that support developers and studios willing to work toward predefined deliverables.
These programs have a legitimate purpose.
But consider the following situation.
Someone arrives in Decentraland, learns the tools, proposes a relatively straightforward experience, agrees to a development schedule, and receives funding.
Meanwhile, someone who has spent years independently building, experimenting, producing content, promoting the platform, and contributing to the community may have no suitable route to financial support.
Their contributions are too varied, spontaneous, or difficult to measure against a conventional milestone.
In effect, we have created an incentive to package creative work into predefined deliverables because that is what the funding structure recognizes.
And I wonder whether we are overlooking something much more valuable in the process.
Organic contribution cannot be managed like a production contract
I think this is the most important distinction.
People who contribute organically often follow their curiosity, experience, and judgment.
They discover opportunities through participation.
They might spend weeks pursuing a technically ambitious idea, encounter a platform limitation, document the experience, share what they’ve learned, and move on to something else.
They might spend time engaging with another community and gradually develop relationships that benefit Decentraland.
They might build a resource that attracts people through search engines for years.
Or they might create something nobody previously considered important.
These activities are difficult to predict.
If we require these creators to commit to a fixed number of videos, predefined features, weekly milestones, or measurable engagement targets, we fundamentally change the nature of their contribution.
We encourage them to optimize for the funding process.
And we already have programs designed around that approach.
My proposal: Support proven independent contributors
I would like to see Regenesis Season 2 introduce a dedicated funding program for established, independent ecosystem contributors.
The idea would be to identify people who have already demonstrated sustained commitment, initiative, competence, and meaningful contributions to Decentraland.
Then provide them with substantial financial support to continue doing what they have demonstrated they are capable of doing independently.
This could take the form of six or twelve-month fellowships, with funding appropriate to the professional time involved.
Creators would retain freedom to decide which projects to pursue, when to change direction, and how to contribute.
The program would support their continued participation and creative output across the ecosystem rather than purchase a predefined list of deliverables.
How do we prevent abuse?
Of course, this raises an important question.
How do we distribute funding responsibly without creating another opportunity for abuse?
I think the answer begins with evidence of past behavior.
Instead of asking someone to promise what they will deliver over the next twelve weeks, we could examine what they have already demonstrated over a meaningful period.
What have they built? What have they published? How have they participated? What initiative have they shown? Have they contributed independently? What value have their activities created?
These are things we can investigate.
Selection should be selective, transparent, and based on an established body of work rather than popularity, friendships, or simply having been around for a long time.
Funding recipients could be reviewed periodically based on their overall continued contribution, perhaps every six months, with clear expectations around responsible use of funding and public accountability.
There should be reasonable safeguards against inactivity and misuse.
But I would avoid converting the fellowship into another weekly production schedule.
The whole point is to preserve the independence that made these contributors valuable in the first place.
What about attracting new creators?
We absolutely need new people.
I would continue supporting newcomers and projects that bring new skills, ideas, and audiences into Decentraland.
But acquisition and retention should both matter.
If we invest heavily in attracting new contributors while taking our most committed existing contributors for granted, we risk losing the very people who make the community worth joining.
And unlike a contracted developer, a genuinely committed community member is someone whose continued participation cannot simply be replaced by issuing another grant.
Final thought
I think there is an important question behind this proposal.
If someone has spent years independently creating value for Decentraland, and we know their contributions are genuine, would we be willing to support them financially even when we cannot prescribe exactly what they will produce next month?
Or do we only recognize value when it can be converted into predefined deliverables, weekly milestones, and performance indicators?
I believe a healthy ecosystem needs both structured development and independent organic creation.
We already have funding mechanisms for structured development.
I would love to see Regenesis create a serious funding mechanism for the second category.
One based on trust, experience, demonstrated contribution, and meaningful creative independence.
Because ultimately, retaining a small group of genuinely committed, capable people may produce more long-term value than commissioning another collection of individual projects.
And once those people leave, rebuilding that commitment may be far more difficult than we realize.