Shouldn't it just be a Democracy?

We hear a lot of "My vote doesn't count because I'm not a whale, we should make it one vote per person." In a Democracy every citizen gets one vote. With Splinterlands this is not an option, since there is no good way to ensure people don't vote with multiple accounts.
We could do something like KYC, but this has many issues. Here are two of the biggest ones:

1. In some parts of the world this can literally put people in danger with their oppressive governments
2. It involves the risk of your personal information leaking, just do a quick search about data leaks and you'll see how real of a danger this is

Even if we could find a way, there is a another fatal flaw with a Democratic system which I'll explain later on.

Doesn't that mean it's basically just an Oligarchy?

In an Oligarchy a few people make all of the decisions. At first glance the SPS DAO can look like this since a relatively small number of people have very large stakes that can outweigh hundreds or even thousands of smaller votes.

But this doesn't tell the whole story. Each of these people come from vastly different backgrounds and have their own ideas on how things should be run. In fact, on most of the past votes, there is a very real split on how these top holders vote.

Well then, what is it?

So now we come to the way the SPS DAO actually works.
Since every staked SPS has 1 vote power, this means that a person's vote is directly weighted in proportion to how much risk they are taking by holding and staking the SPS token.

If you have a small amount of SPS, you want it to be successful, but if it fails, no big deal. If you have a massive amount of SPS, you are passionate about it being successful, because if it fails, you lose massively.

Herein lies the fatal flaw with making this a Democratic system. If everyone gets one vote regardless of their risk exposure, a majority of small holders could vote in a way that takes value from big holders and moves it to themselves. Because they don't have much at stake, it's no big deal to them if they cause the big holders to rage quit and the game dies.

On the other hand, with our stake weighted system, if the big holders vote to take value from the small holders, making them rage quit and the game dies, the big holders lose out BIG time.

So the beauty of this system is that even if all of the top SPS stakers are the most vile, despicable, greedy, self serving, monstrous people on the planet, they are still incentivized to vote in a way that is beneficial to the game. They can be dead wrong on what's best, big stake doesn't mean big smarts, 😂 but they are overwhelmingly incentivized to try their hardest to make the game succeed.

Now let's do a small thought experiment. Imagine that the game is going in a bad direction and the top stakers are making bad decisions. People start leaving and selling their SPS, this causes the price to drop, hurting the top stakers where it hurts most, making them think twice about the direction they're taking the game.

As the price lowers, other people can start to buy large stakes for themselves at cheap prices, and eventually they can become the ones directing the project. So not only do the top stakers have their dollar value at risk, they are literally at risk of losing their role as leaders if they lead poorly enough.

Conclusion

So, to wrap up, we (all SPS stakers) have a vested interest in seeing our project succeed. If you hate the direction the game is going, it really might be best for you to sell your stake and watch as (1) the price falls because of the bad direction, giving you a chance to buy back in for a lot less and have a bigger say in how things are run, or (2) you were the one who was dead wrong 😉 and the price starts going up.

It will be a rocky road, mistakes will be made, people will come and go, but the system itself is simple, yet brilliant. It self regulates, punishing stupidity and bad actors, while rewarding innovation and smart ideas.

Thanks for reading! Please leave your thoughts below.
10% of the rewards go to the @sps.dao