I believe the most logical contribution a Witness can make to the platform is to build apps without special funding
And you really think that it's more important than witness being able to keep the chain safe? Then who would do that instead?
And what would be the incentive for a witness to do that? :-)
People creating awesome apps are usually very different than those who can be reliable block producers.
These are excellent questions.
Ensuring blockchain security by producing blocks is the primary responsibility of a witness.
I was wondering why you directed these questions at my comment. I realized that my responses to the polls were from my perspective as a user who takes the importance of security for granted. Personally, blockchain security isn't as exciting to me as discovering a cool new app that I can use regularly.
Given the current price of $Hive, depending on where a witness lives, even a top witness position may not provide enough incentive to make a living. Expecting a witness to develop apps without funding is, therefore, too much to ask at this point.