Hey guys, so I just caught up on this thread and I have some comments I would like to make in response to some of the statements made. I think Ajay and Vosto have done fine with what they have said, so I will only be replying with things I think are important that hasn’t been covered.
First and foremost, people do buy merch. You may not, but like all things, just because you don’t or won’t, does not mean that “no one” will. In fact, hoodies has been the most requested merch item so far, so the very fact that there would be an option would probably result in sales. Not that THAT is the main target with such things but instead the passive marketing from them.
As for the value of the work, I don’t see how you can possibly judge the value of the work as a whole without even seeing the completion of the work. I would understand not being pleased with something about the work and even providing valid criticisms, as we with BobbyBoy101 who suggested making FungibleFlame stand out better. Judging all of it this early on is sorta like judging the whole of a conversation before even letting someone finish their first sentence. As for the cost of this, I feel as though if you think this is expensive for everything being offered, you may not have a good grasp about how much this sorta stuff costs. This sort of work in this space is not cheap. He even explains what this breaks down to on an hourly basis in the original proposal, and this amount is covering their team.
“Build a dark market” No. While we cannot control how YOU use Firo, we cannot control what services someone offers to utilize Firo, etc. The core team, and the project itself, cannot and will not create something so explicitly against the law. It would put the project as a whole in jeopardy, and that is unacceptable. If you wish to create it, we can’t do anything about that.
“Chatgpt would probably be more effective and efficient and free.” I would greatly disagree with this. While AI is fast, powerful, and great in a lot of ways, it is still a long shot from being on par with a human in any regard. It consistently gets information wrong - especially about crypto. An example of this shortcoming:
“Firo is a privacy-preserving cryptocurrency that was created in 2016. It is based on the Monero codebase and uses a number of privacy-enhancing technologies, including RingCT, Kovri, and Lelantus.
Firo is designed to be both private and decentralized. RingCT hides the amounts of cryptocurrency being sent, Kovri hides the IP addresses of senders and receivers, and Lelantus makes it difficult to track transactions over time.”
This is an answer I received asking for info about Firo.
Even that aside, marketing, branding, etc requires emoting, creativity, adaptability, understanding of culture and perspectives, etc. I can definitely imagine ChatGPT would be good at outlining things, potentially idea generating, etc, but it is in no way capable of replacing the foot work the human has to do. I don’t even think it could create a consistent theme for all the things Vosto is trying to do.
I’ll buy your votes 
