Peer disdain, Akash founder questions io.net's DePIN controversy

Author: Shenchao TechFlow

One of the most noteworthy events in recent days is the launch of the IO.NET token.

From the price fluctuations at Binance to the retrospective experiences of mining IO tokens with graphics cards… it seems that all the attention is focused on the asset aspect of IO.

However, there are dissenting voices.

For instance, Greg Osuri, the founder of another decentralized cloud computing project, Akash Network, couldn't sit still. While everyone's attention was on the price changes of IO, he went to experience the products of IO.NET.

The result of this experience was somewhat disappointing.

Greg then began to point out various product experience issues on Twitter, effectively turning from a founder of another company into a "quality inspector" for IO.NET.

Meanwhile, IO.NET's CTO GauravTdhinait responded one by one, patiently explaining each of Greg's concerns.

The back-and-forth between them was an objective Q&A about product experiences on the surface, but behind the scenes, it was a competition between two similar projects and a matter of brand image maintenance.

It's hard to say whether Akash's founder was genuinely trying to use a competitor's product and provide feedback at this critical moment, or if he was "deliberately nitpicking."

We have compiled the exchanges between Akash founder Greg and IO.NET CTO GauravTdhinait to restore the events themselves.

Buying Apples but Getting a Nokia, Feeling Cheated?

The incident began with an initial fault report from Greg while using IO.NET.

Greg purchased four A100 GPU cluster services on IO.NET and paid the corresponding fees.

However, after completing the deployment of the cluster and the payment process, Greg found that what he received was not four A100 GPUs, but only an RTX A4000.

On paper, the performance gap between what he wanted and what he received was enormous. Greg bluntly stated that it was like paying for an Apple phone but only receiving an old Nokia phone.

To prove the authenticity of his claim, Greg tagged IO.NET on Twitter while demanding an explanation, and he also included a video recording of all the purchase and operation steps.

This post quickly spread and fermented, with others also leaning towards believing it was fraud, demanding an explanation from IO.NET.

This quickly drew a personal response from IO.NET's CTO Gaurav (@GauravTdhinait), who provided a relatively reasonable explanation.

The "goods not matching" in Greg's video recording was actually because one of the servers (nodes) in the cluster he created was unhealthy, which prevented the cluster from operating normally.

As for why he wanted A100s but received an RTX A4000, specifically, the RTX A4000 shown by Greg was actually the main node of the cluster (responsible for management and coordination), not the working node (responsible for actual computation).

Moreover, IO.NET would not charge for this problematic cluster, and it would be automatically destroyed afterward.

In simpler terms, what you recorded in the video is not the same as what you actually saw.

You still got an apple for your money; it’s just that this apple phone had a problem, leading to your misunderstanding.

More importantly, CTO Gaurav also provided additional evidence: Greg actually created a total of seven clusters on IO.NET, six of which ran successfully.

However, Greg only posted about this failed case and demanded an explanation. Although IO.NET did not directly comment on this behavior, it’s hard not to think that Greg might be nitpicking based on an exception.

He didn’t mention the six successful ones but recorded the one failure and demanded a response. Some commenters pointed out:

You don’t seem like someone who genuinely wants to use the product…

Acting as a Quality Inspector

After questioning the mismatch, Greg did not stop acting as IO.NET's quality inspector and continued to complain about other issues with IO.NET's products, fixating on various experience problems.

For example, Greg claimed he deposited 100U into his IO.NET account but did not receive the upgrade to unlock the ability to purchase more clusters, questioning whether IO.NET was deliberately conducting censorship and restricting his account permissions;

Additionally, the CTO of IO.NET found Greg's behavior suspicious, as he quickly created a cluster service and deleted it two minutes later. Greg seriously refuted this, stating that he did not delete it immediately but waited a long time because IO.NET's system could not correctly display the GPU, making it seem like the program was unresponsive, which led to a reasonable deletion…

As of the writing of this article, Greg is still continuously posting new threads on Twitter, even compiling various issues together to complain, telling everyone not to believe only the words of IO.NET's CTO, while also praising the smooth operation of his own Akash Network.

Whether IO.NET has experience issues or how many experience issues it has seems less important in such exchanges and exposure posts;

What stands out instead is that as the founder of another project, he is spending a lot of energy "experiencing" a competitor's product and relentlessly pointing out various problems, seriously refuting every "one-sided statement."

Is he really the CEO of his own company, or just a free quality inspector for someone else's?

In this way, getting entangled in details makes it seem less about being serious and more about lowering the level of discourse.

Greg's behavior has also drawn criticism from the community, with some stating, "Brother, you should spend time improving your own product instead of complaining about your competitors," while others holding AKT feel that Greg's perspective is lacking, making them want to sell their tokens.

Peers Undermining Each Other

The ancient saying goes that scholars often look down on each other, referring to the mutual disdain among intellectuals.

It's easy to understand Greg's feeling of satisfaction in nitpicking and his motivation—I am also in the same business as you, so I certainly can't tolerate your small mistakes; there’s often an impulse to say, "If you can't even handle this, then I really want to talk to you."

Thus, the Akash founder's complaints about IO.NET can be seen as a form of DePIN undermining.

Everyone has their own skills, but they also hope the other side has only one.

With decentralized cloud computing projects emerging one after another, there aren't many technical barriers; it’s more about resource-intensive business. The quality of experience, the smoothness of operation, and the amount of brand resources often become the crucial chips in the competition.

However, personally stepping in as a quality inspector, if one does not have absolute confidence in pointing out issues, ultimately harms one’s own brand image more.

After all, if one is harshly nitpicking at competitors, when one’s own product encounters a small issue, the community will certainly bring up past grievances.

Leaving room for oneself and others may be a more pragmatic philosophy in a world where makeshift teams prevail.