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Noodling on Aragon/Autark dispute below
tldr dispute resolution is a *product* hidden in very old infrastructure. As a result, dispute res products have not faced competition or evolved to meet user needs. DAOs hint at an unbundling: a robust market for dispute res products
tldr dispute resolution is a *product* hidden in very old infrastructure. As a result, dispute res products have not faced competition or evolved to meet user needs. DAOs hint at an unbundling: a robust market for dispute res products
Others have covered the dispute in depth: Aragon is a platform for building DAOs. Autark is creating tools for users of the platform. Aragon gave Autark a grant pursuant to an agreement that Autark allegedly breached https://defirate.com/aragon-autark/
The apparent irony: Aragon is building a dispute res product, Aragon Court, for firms on its platform. AC enables use of subjective principles in agreements and governance. This is a dispute about how to interpret an agreement - why not use Aragon Court? https://twitter.com/evabeylin/status/1263872801082978304
Let’s dig deeper on the problem that AC is trying to solve. The classic model of a DAOs is one built entirely on smart contracts performing automatically, without human intervention. If you can’t plan around every possible conflict or edge case in advance, your DAO will fail.
At the other side of the spectrum, firms are built on human-readable contracts. Subjective terms enable us to negotiate around disagreements that are too complex to resolve now. But these can evolve into full disputes, ending up in litigation or arbitration - slow and expensive.
But these are just poles. The exciting part is when DAOs and firms cross-pollinate. Smart contracts can be used to make routine aspects of governance cheap and easy. Human-readable contracts w subjective terms can be used for edge cases https://twitter.com/jeremysklaroff/status/1169047728749522945
DAO platforms will let users *choose* their own balance between on- and off-chain dispute res and different features w/in each. "Dissident tech” might prefer fully anonymized on-chain, gladly foregoing the expertise of traditional corporate law courts https://twitter.com/mayazi/status/1232734288195575809
But some contracts (thus some disputes) will still be better suited for traditional courts. Volatile environments make it difficult to plan the possible outcomes and disputes at the drafting stage. An agreement governing the development of very speculative tech is a good example
Neutrality, too. Why would Autark agree to a dispute res forum built on Aragon’s tech? The Aragon Assoc is an entity created and defined by corporate law. It's accountable to a different set of stakeholders than the Aragon ecosystem at large. The Assoc itself is not a DAO (yet)
Compare this to existing courts, which are designed to maximize neutrality. This is part of what litigants “pay for” when using that product. But I’d imagine some users would choose a faster and cheaper experience where there are less strict neutrality checks
Ultimately I’m excited about the possibilities of DAOs and dispute res tech while recognizing the limitations. Actually, this is exactly why I’m excited - imagining a market for dispute res products, each solving a different problems, not simplistically trying to replace courts
