I disagree with you on this one. Masternodes have the final say in anything, be it development, marketing, or anything else. That's why it's called Decentralized "Governance" by Blockchain.
TL;DR; I disagree.
Complete version:
No one should have final say in anything here, that's not how networks consensus works. Otherwise - you don't really need miners, merchants, exchanges, devs (wallet makers), users. Create your own masternode only network and live happy with it (if you can). How it really works is that majority of every group I mentioned + masternodes, all 6 of them must agree on smth in order for network to run as expected. It's Governance, not Government with a Prime Minister. I actually personally don't share Evan's vision of asking masternodes "every possible question", I think it's bad idea and 2MB block size voting was actually a fail which showed the weakness of Governance rather than the strong side imo. I stand from criticizing it because it actually doesn't really matter now, we are too small to hit even 1MB constraint currently so it basically won't hurt anyway. But technically speaking it was a weak decision which if implemented straightforward right now could make network more vulnerable to spam attacks without bringing anything positive to the table. I'd like to see masternodes voting moving towards funding decisions while technical decisions priority should be shifted to developers imo. This doesn't mean however that 2Mb block decision should be made by developers only - it's all about consensus, all 6 groups must participate and bring their pros and cons so that everyone would understand the possible outcome of implementation/adoption of such solution.
So imo network consensus in Dash should be smth like this:
Masternodes: which projects should we fund so that it benefits the whole ecosystem?
Developers: which technical solutions should we implement so that it benefits the whole ecosystem?
Miners: which chain should we secure so that it benefits the whole ecosystem?
Exchanges, Merchants and Users: which chain should we accept value from so that it benefits the whole ecosystem?
Bitcoin is missing the Self-Funding part and that what we should address, network consensus should still be a complex thing where everyone has it's voice.
So I'd say we should go with a greater degree of DF(unding)BB rather than pure DGBB. You still should be able to ask masternodes' opinion on some question that is not directly linked to funding itself via this (or similar) mechanism however, but that should/could be more a nice side effect rather than "The one and only mega Oracle that rules them all".
So again:
- Mining pools can vote via including some specific info into coinbase of the block the mined while individual miners can vote via selecting mining ports or switching pools completely
- Masternodes have a way to directly cast their vote via network protocol
- Developer can "vote" via code rollouts (which everyone else decide to use or not to use)
- Exchanges, Merchants and Users vote by simply using network to accept/move value (or not using it anymore)
The devs should submit their development proposal to the Masternode operators, who will most likely approve it, as they are doing a great job. Some controversial proposals for development will not, such as the proof of labour. Maybe in the future it will be reconsidered. All key areas of Dash development should be approved by the Masternode owners, IMHO, as they are "governing" the project via largest stake in it's success.
Development proposal of Core Team is already there: "
Salary for DASH core team". If masternodes doesn't like what team is doing - "dash-cli mnbudget vote-many eac6392cd0d63e4b2ebd3c60da2d3e13137c892cd4cd1a8f3885077ac86b7487 no". That's easy

So basically, I disagree on the highlighted part of your post for the reasons I just described above. Plus one more thing: I hate to see this project to move from permissionless innovations to permissioned ones - that's boring and that's dead end imo.
I have no clue what happened in the open Slack as I'm not there. I also don't know what "Dash Nation" is or signifies. This is a financial payment processor project that looks to solve status-quo problems with hopes to promote a better tomorrow for the benefit of all. It's not a libertarian anti-institutional club. It's a an open-source decentralised project with an objective path, not a social experiment.
+ 1
@TaoOfSatoshi I'm fine with all excitement and social/community activities as long as you keep it to yourself (by "you" here and below I mean those who are interested in such activities, not you personally, of course). I had enough of so called patriotism here in real life and I don't want to be the part of the masses or whatever it's called. I never liked nationalism, I doubt I would like crypto-nationalism now but if someone needs some kind of unity or whatever - I'm not going to stop you but don't expect me to sign smth or swear on some kind of a constitution or whatever you are writing, just leave me alone and play your games without me.