Thanks Vitalik. That post was one of the first gateways that introduced me to this whole weird DAO world :) So points taken, though the focus of the argument in this specific post is definitely on Stateful Protocols, typically running on-chain (i.e. more application-level), rather than stateless protocol like TCP, BT, and etc.

Now my argument, though, is that owning certain tokenized resources doesn’t automatically make a stateful protocol become an organization — though there are definitely constructs that would make it so (such as centralized corporation replicating it equity shares to crypto-equity). On top of that, there’s also the element of legality that adds to the stake of more precise terminology in different cases.

Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine in the future, in place of rather volatile human cops, the elders of humanity have collectively decided to deploy large group of PeaceCorp Robots.

These bots are programmed to serve and make sure all human follow certain agreed upon rules in different aspects of life, which they can enforce perfectly. One specific model, named TRAVISK is in charge of enforcing taxi rules.

He runs around the city tirelessly and connects you to the nearest idle taxi. He makes sure you pay the driver properly and then takes a little cut, for his own maintenance fee, and perhaps for a few drinks. If you behave badly, he will also take note, and penalizes you with slower service next time.

Q: Is TRAVISK and/or all the humans he interact with collectively form an organization? IMO, at this point, he’s more of a rule enforcer that maintains the protocol between these people — though he does record things like reputation and collect fees.

Now, if we expand his capacity to say forward any profits towards advanced car research, or even supporting taxi driver college education, we would probably still consider that a protocol, only a more sophisticated one.

The line become quite blurred, if TRAVISK’s activity scope become extremely flexible, and only up to its token holders behind it, since it’s merely acting on behalf of their collective will.

So perhaps, there’s a spectrum from Organization-like to a Stateful Business Protocol, differentiated by how concrete the interaction rules are specified, rather than just a single factor of whether the protocol owns capital.