TLDR: This post assumes it’s Q1 2025, and most of what it forecasts has already occurred.
This ship sailed with Arbitrum Foundation’s change in posture earlier this year. While we don’t disagree with your message here, Arbitrum is already in the middle of:
AF already does this, with political involvement to support favored programs. There are early signs of OpCo moving in this direction, which is probably what prompted your post.
We have a clear example of this on the BLAZE proposal:
So again, we agree with you that it’s not best practices, but your warning is about 8 months too late. So the question now isn’t how to prevent conflicted actors, but to get enough of them in circulation and in conflict with each other to serve as (imperfect) checks.
To minimize
we think there’s value in having more active entities to compete, and so are not inclined to oppose OpCo running a firestarter program.
Given your worries, one small thing you can do is to stop using this term “AAE” as if it’s an official term. The Arbitrum Vision was just a forum post, and never garnered enough support to even be proposed, much less make the AAE framework policy. It’s a small thing, but your own language is supporting the very same trends you are warning against.