This recent post by a Google engineer talking about how open source communities can out innivate closed source efforts has parallels with the Cardano ecosystem.
https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither
We’ve seen how the community has developed a better alternative to Plutus for a smidgen of the time and cost that Plutus has been under development. We’ve seen how wallets came out far faster and with more features than Lace. We’ve seen DC Spark release a slew of innovative tools.
This leads to the fact that the more Cardano can empower its community to build, and the less dependent it is on any one company, the better. This is the biggest strength of the Ethereum ecosystem – lots of different companies working on lot of different aspects of Ethereum.
It’s a real shame Orbis went under, as their zk research was much needed. Not too long ago someone raised a million Ada to develop Deadalus turbo. Good for them I say – we need new people tinkering with, understanding, and improving these things.
Hopefully this bodes well for self governance too. Rather than waiting years for a centralised entity to get round to doing something, the community can tap into their funds and get going on areas they consider important.
Open sourcing and boostrapping will be key to rapid innovation across the Cardano ecosystem. Give a person a tool and they’ll build a shed. Give a tribe a toolkit, and they’ll build a city.
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