@diogo glad you feel that way, esp. on lightning! I agree with your comments largely, and appreciate the friendly tone!
Itâs very murky. Stefan Thomas who was interviewed there was Ripple CTO
https://www.w3.org/blog/2019/09/w3c-tpac-2019-platinum-sponsors-announced/
They were w3c platinum sponsors. Not even Google are platinum sponsors
They also paid berners-lee and bernanke undisclosed amounts to headline their conference
For those that dont know Ripple were the first fully centralized premined, coin. Theyâve issued about 30 billion in tokens, and are looking to issue another 30 billion more
They are also being sued by the US gov. for issuing these unregistered securities, for multiple billions. In the court case a very important part is whether these tokens have use in projects. To that end, inserting them, or adjacent to, grass roots open-source project, is beneficial to their case for utility
The wallets are awful. Theyâll send you messages such as. âYou have 14 days to complete these paperwork or your funds will be frozenâ
While this is open to other systems, the reality is that 80% of folks will use the default. So itâs channeling unsuspecting fediverse users who will trust s/w developers to act in their interest to a path to privacy invasive wallets, aiming to capture a further user base, and to a degree good reputation of open source
They also tried hard to get into Solid through back channels, and contacted me to do so. I didnt respond to them, and they then went to others offering grants to incorporate this into Solid, including the community pod with I ran. I was against this, as you might be able to tell
So, Iâd treat that spec with extreme caution. However, why dont we take the best parts and make a fediverse version acting in the interests of users, and removing the default wallets. I feel that web monetization is under iron change control by ripple. If we had our own spec it would be IMHO much better. Perhaps the FEP could move towards that, as I fear slippery slope.