Such thinking is the main reason why crypto in general has not yet flourished the way it could, and why there have been so many scammed “investors”.
The purpose of acquiring cryptocurrencies is to ensure security and unconfiscatability of value as well as its trustless and efficient transacting.
As long as even the people currently involved in crypto do not understand this, there will be no mass adoption and correct regulation of the space. But the space will get there eventually through learning and education.
I disagree with this premise. Plenty of crypto projects are funded by investors who want ROI which aids in growth of ecosystems. What you are describing are speculators who are trying to get rich quick, and another problem aside from my point that I was making above, which is that people are not buying Algorand for fun or out of a sense of charity, they expect to make a profit, no different than any other business investment.
It also is not why you don’t have mass adoption. You don’t have mass adoption because at the end of the day, there are not enough real world use cases for an average joe, that are also fairly easy to execute. To be clear, I am not stating there are none, but it takes time and effort to understand Defi. Most people on the street don’t see what crypto offers other than an investment vehicle. For that to change, Crypto has to become something that solves tangible issues for the average person. I believe that it will, but again it takes time. When I was a kid the internet was similar, for many they didn’t see what the point was in it until they realized “Oh email is great, or I can play with friends who don’t live here” and we got past dial up LOL.
It is not necessary to explicitly incentivize participation in a direct form of governance. Just look at how elections work in the vast majority of countries. I am not aware of any country where (honest) participation in elections would be directly compensated. The incentives are inherent - one participates to help in deciding what is the best for the the future of the country they are apart of since they have a stake there by living there, having their family and friends there, their ancestors, culture, etc. Same notion applies to Algorand and one’s ALGO stake.
If you want large scale participation, yes you do. National elections have inherent incentives because they can have material impacts on my day to day life. What happens here in governance for a crypto token has nowhere near the significance, hence why in my earlier post I stated I did not like analogizing Algorand to a nation. You are correct, most countries don’t compensate for votes, though you could argue political parties do try to give incentives. If we consider elections, oftentimes parties will drive their base by promises of incentives. While no its not a direct payment (well I guess the last stimulus checks kind of were) they do incentivize your vote. And even with this turnout still sucks. With Algorand, or any crypto project, you have nowhere near as much incentive ability, which brings me to the last point.
The reason for this is not the lack of (explicit) incentives but the lack of understanding on the importance of voting. Studies on voter turnout have clearly shown that the most important socioeconomic factor affecting voter turnout is education. Same applies to blockchains - both their governance and running of nodes. Most do not understand why this would benefit them personally, while in reality they are harming themselves the most by not doing so.
I agree with you that a lack of education hurts turnout, but my point was that expecting turnout from a general populace without major incentive does not work. I come from a lower income family, and very few in my family go vote. Some of them are even issue aware, but you know why they don’t? “I have work to do, I have bills to pay, mouths to feed and at the end of the day I can’t take the time when there’s nothing really in it for me”. Now I’d bet if I offered each of them $50 to go vote that day, they would find the time. My original point was that if the goal of governance is overall community participation, there has to be incentive to take the time. Unlike political parties and nations, Algorand does not impact our day to day lives. Additionally no one voting in an election has to lock up an asset for 3 months for the right to vote. If I had to give the government my car to sit in a lot for 3 months just so I could vote I would absolutely want something for it.