I don't know who
@Argon31 is, but he just showed up a few days ago FUDing and Trolling on pretty much every proposal thread there is, telling everyone that he's going to vote against them and that their proposals won't be successful and that they should ask for less money...on pretty much every single thread, go look 'em up yourself. Dunno who he is, nor do I care. I care about the face he is presenting to proposal owners and prospective partners, and it's one that is needlessly cruel and arrogant and not conducive to healthy business or diplomatic relations. You're not helping anyone, you're just making this whole thing worse for everyone and quickly making an enemy out of me.
That being said, Ben's first proposal was meant to cover various costs. Dash took a major price hit since then, so suddenly Ben didn't have the funds he thought he was going to have. Ben is not asking for this much regularly, this is just to finish out what he intended to do with the first proposal, as they've been having to fly on much less than they anticipated--and that includes paying all the crew and for equipment, etc.
Now, that being said, the value of having partners like Ben is that they do not answer to prevailing power structures, and as the net around us tightens with the banning of cryptocurrency advertisement around Facebook, Google, and likely others who will follow suit, we will need people with massive reach to get the word out about Dash. You can't just look at "clicks" and expect that to be the only metric that matters. Even simply getting money in to wallets doesn't matter. What matters is generating new actual *users* and establishing Dash in the public view and consciousness.
Widespread adoption is about more than clicks and downloads. It has to become part of public consciousness. It has to have recognition and respect. If people are not talking about it, it won't go anywhere. Dash needs to be seen and heard out of the mouths of respectable people who can demonstrate its unique qualities and advantages and place in the world.
Now, you may not believe Ben is the right or best person for that job, that his platform is not the ideal one; fine. Then work on bringing people you believe are more ideal to the table, and in the mean time, we'll work with those that are eager to have a mutually beneficial, mutually successful partnership and help lay the groundwork for even greater projects in the future.
When we funded Ben, we had all sorts of people knocking on our door, wanting to learn more about who we are and what we're about. Ben alone brought at least a half dozen other solid proposals to our table. That's not something you can measure in clicks or KPI.
Lastly, we have to consider what it means to renege on our business relationships, to partner with someone and pull the rug out from under them. Dash Core is developing a payment system, but the Dash DAO is so much more than that with the potential to change the world.
If you don't have the vision or fortitude for that, then sell your stake and move along to some other project.
