Web3 is developing at an accelerated pace, and Arweave as an infrastructure will be adopted by more developers to create a new and more colorful ecosystem. PermaDAO is a co-builder community established for this purpose. All participants can find their own roles here to contribute to the Arweave ecosystem. Any proposals and tasks about Arweave can be published here and receive support and feedback from the entire community. Join PermaDAO and build Web3!
Author: Spike @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Reviewer: Lemon @ Contributor of PermaDAO
For a long time, SaaS (Software as a Service) has been confined to traditional Internet service platforms, such as office, EDA, or the intelligent transformation of large factories and mines, and has rarely penetrated into the Web3 field.
On the one hand, the development of various fields of Web3 is still in its early stages, and the public development tools and business complexity have not yet spawned such a large-scale demand; on the other hand, tools such as DAO are difficult to be incorporated into the general SaaS system. Although there are many DAO tools, they are generally limited to the voting, governance and other levels, and cannot fully cover all aspects of DAO's daily business.
According to a report by Deloitte, the global SaaS market has reached a scale of US$100 billion, and its development shows a pattern of "general first, then vertical". Taking the United States as an example, before 2015, general-purpose mergers and acquisitions accounted for the vast majority of the share, and since then, vertical SaaS services have become the mainstream.
Moreover, with the popularization and development of cloud computing, the current SaaS cloud has become a mainstream trend. It can be said that cloud computing and SaaS have increasingly become a twin relationship between infrastructure and presentation form. Users only need to connect to the network through the terminal locally, and subsequent office, security protection and any business needs can be processed through the cloud. Local users only need to send instructions and receive results.
Therefore, the SaaS discussed in this article can be described as "SaaS (Software as a Service) is a software delivery model in which users access and use software applications through the Internet without having to purchase, install, and maintain the software themselves. SaaS providers deploy the software on cloud servers and provide services to users through the Internet. Users only need to pay a subscription fee to use the software's features and services."
For a long time, SaaS has had many usage scenarios, such as the following:
1. Enterprise collaboration tools
Enterprise collaboration tools are an important application area of SaaS. They provide a centralized management and collaboration platform that allows team members to easily share files, collaborate on document editing, schedule meetings, etc. For example, Slack is a well-known enterprise collaboration tool that provides real-time chat, file sharing, and project management functions to help team members collaborate more efficiently.
2. Customer Relationship Management
SaaS is also widely used in the field of customer relationship management (CRM). CRM software helps companies manage customer information, track sales opportunities, provide customer support, etc. Salesforce is a well-known CRM software provider that provides a complete set of CRM solutions, including sales, marketing, and customer service modules, to help companies improve sales and customer satisfaction.
3. Human Resource Management
SaaS is also widely used in the field of human resource management (HRM). HRM software helps companies manage employee information, recruitment processes, performance evaluation, etc. For example, Workday is a well-known HRM software provider that provides a comprehensive set of human resource management solutions, including modules such as personnel management, compensation and benefits, and training and development, to help companies improve the efficiency of human resource management.
If we focus on the Web3 field, the most suitable combination direction is to provide management tools for DAO. Unlike the strong financial attributes of DeFi or public chains, DAO tools have a higher fault tolerance rate and do not have high requirements for anonymity. They are more suitable for adaptation with traditional development tools to achieve higher operational efficiency.
The traditional DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is a form of organization based on blockchain technology, which achieves decentralized decision-making and management through smart contracts and cryptocurrency. DAO members can decide the affairs of the organization through voting without the need for a centralized authority.
If we imagine a SaaS DAO, combining SaaS and DAO, we can create a new form of organization, namely "SaaS DAO". In a SaaS DAO, software providers can give the right to use and make decisions about the software to users, making them co-owners and managers of the software. Users can decide the functions, upgrades, and development directions of the software by voting, thus achieving a more democratic and decentralized software development and management process.
You can imagine how it works. In this tool, users can vote to decide the development priority of new features of Permaswap. The following is an example of the voting decision process:
User proposals: Users can propose new features and explain why they are important and how they can be implemented.
Voting begins: All users can participate in voting to express their support or opposition to different proposals.
End of voting: After the voting time is reached, the system will calculate the number of votes for each proposal.
Results are announced: The system will announce the proposal with the most votes and announce that the feature will be developed.
Development and implementation: The development team will start developing new features based on the proposals with the most votes.
Online release: After the development of new functions is completed, they will be tested in the system and released online.
Through such a voting decision-making process, SaaS DAO can better meet user needs and provide new features that meet user expectations, while also enhancing users' sense of participation and belonging to the DAO.
Going further, token economics can be embedded into it. The current problem of DAO is concentrated on the binding of voting rights and tokens, which can easily cause the voices of large investors or whales to crush retail investors. However, more complex voting mechanisms are not as simple and easy as voting by tokens. Therefore, if SaaS is introduced into it, users can obtain access to the software by holding tokens and participate in the development and improvement of the software.
Not only that, users can also vote to decide on the software's functions, interface design, bug fixes, and other matters. The voting weight of each user is proportional to the number of tokens they hold. At the same time, users can also obtain a share of the platform's revenue by holding tokens. This sharing mechanism can encourage users to actively participate in the development and operation of the platform. In this way, the combination of SaaS and DAO can achieve more democratic, transparent, and fair software services, allowing users to truly become the masters of software services and jointly participate in the development and decision-making of the software.
In fact, Arweave's PST can already meet existing needs. Under the PST mechanism, profits will be returned to the project's founding team over time, which is also the original intention of profit sharing. Combined with underlying tools such as $U and UDL, the on-chain workload recording is also simpler.
Similarities between SaaS and DAOs
SaaS and DAO have some common features in terms of decentralization.
First, they both use a distributed network architecture. SaaS is usually based on cloud computing, deploying software services on multiple servers and providing them to users through the network. For example, AWS cloud services operate 42 availability zones in 16 geographic regions around the world. DAO is based on blockchain technology, distributing decision-making and management power to various nodes in the network. This distributed architecture makes both SaaS and DAO highly scalable and fault-tolerant.
Secondly, both parties have a certain degree of openness and transparency. From a product perspective, SaaS usually provides an open API interface, allowing users to customize and integrate according to their own needs. DAO, on the other hand, achieves transparency in decision-making and funds through smart contracts and public blockchain accounting. For example, PermaDAO provides a completely open and transparent record of financial distribution, and the three-level finances of DAO-guild-individual can be viewed and recorded.
Finally, both SaaS and DAO emphasize the concept of user participation and sharing. SaaS allows users to easily use and enjoy software services by providing user-friendly interfaces and functions. DAO, on the other hand, realizes the concept of democratized decision-making and shared economy through the voting and participation of coin holders.
In essence, SaaS black-boxes the information and data processing process. Users do not need to consider the internal processing flow, but only need to focus on the business needs of their own work. DAO completely chains the internal process to eliminate the impact of centralization with complete openness and transparency.
Taking PermaDAO as an example, a typical DAO usually consists of the following elements:
Code and smart contracts: The operation and decision-making of DAO are executed and managed by code and smart contracts. These codes and smart contracts stipulate the rules and processes of the organization, including member joining and exiting, voting decisions, fund management, etc. (Currently, PermaDAO is not fully on-chain, but it has used everPay to permanently record incentives)
Member participation: Members of a DAO can be anyone, and they can participate in the organization's decision-making process by holding DAO tokens or other forms of voting rights. Members can propose proposals, vote, supervise execution, etc.
Autonomy and transparency: DAO operates in a decentralized manner, without centralized entity control and intervention. All decisions and executions are open and transparent, and anyone can view and verify them.
Fund management: DAO usually has its own fund pool, and members can decide how to use the funds through voting, such as investing in projects, paying members, etc.
SaaS DAO can be summarized into the following key points:
Based on existing network products: SaaS DAO is an on-chain delivery and management model built on the existing network software and hardware infrastructure. For example, cloud computing provides powerful computing and storage capabilities, while PermaDAO provides mature operational capabilities. You only need to adapt the two to use it out of the box to meet your own special needs.
DAO as a Service: PermaDAO provides content, management, activities and branding as services to users. Users do not need to purchase additional services, but pay for use through cooperation, buyout, and subscription. For example, MAPDAO can flexibly choose the required functions and scale according to actual needs to determine its own expenditure costs.
No installation and maintenance required: SaaS DAO applications do not need to be installed and maintained locally on the user. Users only need to access Notion and a browser to use existing PermaDAO services anytime, anywhere, and with everPay, work recording and token distribution can be completed with one click.
In summary, PermaDAO promotes itself as a service to the outside world, which can achieve the following functions:
One-click start: The existing DAO basic tools are all complete. Third-party platforms do not need to consider the complexity of building from the bottom up. They can directly exist as a sub-DAO of PermaDAO, but can maintain complete independence. The accounts of both parties are interoperable, but the workload can be calculated separately and displayed in separate scenes on the front end. With the public nature of blockchain, there is no need to worry about centralized control.
Process management: PermaDAO can be used to improve process management. In the future, by connecting and decoupling the various links of process distribution and using smart contracts to automate and optimize the process, the efficiency and transparency of process distribution can be improved. For example, by using PermaDAO, the writing, distribution and dissemination effects of any article can be tracked and verified in real time, and long-term dynamic monitoring can be achieved, and incentives can be distributed according to workload.
Secondary communication platform: PermaDAO can be used to create a decentralized social media platform. Taking the Product Promotion Association as an example, a professional PR organization system is established on it, which is responsible for the promotion and operation of articles. When the article has a high social influence, both the author and the PR can receive corresponding rewards.
Voting and Decision Making: PermaDAOs can be used for decentralized voting and decision making. In the future, through the use of smart contracts and the voting rights of token holders, a fair and transparent decision making process can be achieved. It is conceivable that any PermaDAO can be used to manage a community fund, and token holders can vote on how to allocate funds.
After the cooperation between MAPDAO and PermaDAO
MAP is a cross-chain interoperability protocol. In order to realize the true decentralized blueprint, MAPDAO will be launched as the ultimate decentralized operation plan. At present, how to efficiently organize such things as personnel sedimentation, content production, and the display of front-end and back-end pages requires the assistance of professional tools.
In addition to Discord and WeChat groups, MAPDAO also needs Notion to accumulate its historical data and related documents. In addition, it also needs automated incentive distribution tools to reduce errors caused by human errors.
After long-term practice, PermaDAO has formed a complete ecological service system with everPay as the core and Notion as the workload sedimentation center.
Any user who joins needs to "board", that is, bind their own notion account and everPay address to achieve the correspondence between individuals and account systems, which is convenient for the subsequent incentive distribution;
After joining, you can choose from multiple guilds such as content, product promotion, translation, and development, and complete tasks according to your area of expertise. The value of the tasks is open and transparent, and you can also view historical account records;
In addition to the above core functions, PermaDAO has also developed many tools to facilitate third-party DAOs to choose to access, such as Arseeding, which is used to permanently store personal data and DAO incentive data on the Arweave network. everPay and Permaswap provide efficient DeFi tools to facilitate third-party DAOs to access their own tokens. Currently, it supports multiple token formats such as ERC-20, PST and everPay native.
It is envisioned that the tools provided by PermaDAO will be available as public goods for everyone to use. It is worth noting that third-party DAOs do not need to worry about their independence being eroded. In essence, the service provided by PermaDAO is to promote the growth of Arweave's data and usage. It does not matter what ecosystem the DAO comes from.
As the underlying infrastructure serving the blockchain ecosystem, Arweave's vision is to become the Library of Alexandria in the Web3 era. As a permanent storage infrastructure, not only DAOs, but also products including public chains, L2, DeFi, NFTs and other applications can be connected to Arweave as a backup of network data.
We believe that the addition of MAPDAO is PermaDAO’s first step towards SaaS. After more than a year of development, PermaDAO has formed nearly 200 active users, maintaining Arweave’s visibility in the Asian market.
Conclusion
In the last quarter of 2023, PermaDAO will gradually move towards openness, not only as an underlying storage facility, but more to embrace different types of ecosystems, to jointly expand and strengthen the data growth of different use cases of Web3, and to maintain an open mind towards the existing mature concepts of Web2, so that what is on the chain will remain on the chain, and what is off the chain will remain off the chain.
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