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Colony: A platform for open organizations

colony.io

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Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#23

Post by haffi112 »

I know smart contracts are based on being able to prove that you solved some given task. The task can for example be to find a value which hashes to match the one in the contract. However, that task is not so interesting within an organisation.

Can someone give an ELI5 of how I can prove that I did a job which is more complex than the one above? For example, to implement a new feature in a software system, sell a product, design a product which the colony is happy with...

Essentially, I want to understand better what are the limitations of these smart contracts.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#24

Post by danpalmer »

This concept seems interesting, and great at first glance, but the more I think about it the more I’m skeptical as to whether it would be a fair system.

It looks like a true meritocracy, but a computer does not fundamentally understand merit, which I assume means that it is left to people to recognise the merit in others. I can imagine this would lead to the same politics as you get when peer feedback influences bonuses (which is relatively common now).

I also worry that it would be too easy to game for certain people. We already have the case that men are more likely to ask for raises, which is a contributing factor to pay inequality. I can see there being other places like that here which would allow for gaming the system.

I’d love to read a blog post on these sorts of concerns from Colony. It’s a fascinating concept and I do hope these aren’t issues with the system in practice.

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#27

Post by lazyasciiart »

katelynsills wrote: post #9

This is really interesting. I've lately become more curious about theories of transaction costs - how traditional firms might have an advantage because they don't have to bargain over every decision and have understood lines of decision-making. I'm wondering if decentralized organizations might have a transaction cost problem.

I can't quite tell from your comment whether you are familiar with this as an existing topic in economics - if you're not, you might find this an interesting intro to the area of study http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/coase.htm

Re: Colony: A platform for open organizations

#30

Post by popcorncowboy »

bmelton wrote: post #3
lozenge wrote: post #2

I'm happy to see another product in the "opinionated management" space (another is https://www.loomio.org ) but think integrating a cryptocurrency limits the appeal and cheapens the concept. I really can't see who this is designed for.

Interesting to see the comparison. I've been (very) loosely following the progress of Colony, and I've had the sense that they were much closer to Assembly ( http://assemblymade.com/ ), which is now defunct. I was a participant in Assembly, and am optimistic that an eventual replacement will figure out how to make the money side work enough that they can keep going. As it stands, I'm not entirely certain who Colony i…

Agreed. And in particular I'm curious as to "what truly differentiates Colony from what Assembly did"? ie. what is Colony doing to address the fate of Assembly?

I'd love to see something like this take off. I also remain unconvinced that the problem with something like Assembly was simply that it wasn't on the blockchain.

It's also a big ask to bet the cumulative and growing value of your collective efforts on your contract code not ever having any kind of edge case that could leak value contrary to the _spirit_ of your endeavour. Or deferring the (still as yet untested) legal issues of DAOs.

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