the cynical view on @nicksdjohnson's actions is that the DAO never really existed but i think that's inaccurate. the DAO does exist and the protocol and treasury is owned by the DAO. it would take an investment of ~$20 million dollars to equalize his actions. that's nothing compared to the value ENS provides to the Ethereum ecosystem. state of things (from an outside perspective): - ENS revenue has been steadily declining for years. proof: onchain protocol revenue - funding of ENS Labs has been steadily increasing. proof: past payments to ENS Labs - ENS Labs has great people but has been under-performing for years. no sense of urgency, direction, or quality. proof: take a look at the ENS v2 dapp. it's embarrassing to say the least (for a company that's being funded with close to $10m / year). same goes for core infra provided by them like the ENS Metadata Service and the L2 pivot. what the ENS DAO should do (these are not my ideas but i think they are good): - find support from the Ethereum ecosystem to safeguard the DAO - start a revenue sharing program: apps that are used to register / renew domains get 50% of initiated protocol revenue. this would align incentive with the ecosystem and greatly increase the number and quality of integrations. - fund a multi client inspired service/research provider future, make ENS Labs a normal service provider like any other. Let capitalism solve the issue of bad performance through competition between SPs - have yearly elections of a core leadership team on the/a foundation to manage legal, brand, public relations, etc.

ENS is the coolest thing on Ethereum and it's being fumbled big time for nothing but ego and isolationism. Truly bizarre...