Repost from Slack:
Hey guys, just wanted to give an update on the project, address some things, and give my own opinion on some others through an administrators view:
I'm still here, but as Michael mentioned, we have had constant pleas for people / community to get involved or show some interest other than just watching the price and expecting it to go up without any work. I thought things were pretty clear in the last update on what direction HZ was taking at the moment.
Things that are on the horizon are getting Blocknet released, and all the participating networks linked up. Technically this is still on schedule according to the road map that was released at ICO, and the Slack is very active both from the community, and the developers. Projects of this size, and ambition take time, money and people resources.
Altsheetsdev and another guy on the forums have been creating a lot of tools for the community to use, and altsheets has offered to expand his development to whatever needs people want (good for asset creators). Again with this, the community has not been vocal in what they want, or have what they want.
I have been following the ADsactly project / asset more closely and they have been making a lot of progress with growing, and are getting ready for their official launch. Their numbers look good, and they actually have all the right pieces ( financially and the right people) to really drive traffic. I think if more people knew about how it works, they would see the potential and want to get involved. They will have their official announcement soon!
I agree that announcing things that are in the works, and not completed isn't the best practice, but as you can see in the forum history, people hate it. when you don't say something. So you give them dates, and God forbid you are even an hour late, or prepare to face the wrath of the internet.. It gets held above your head forever, and I don't think it's good for any developer. The fact of the manner is that a lot of crypto devs, not just with HZ work on these projects on top of their normal jobs - and normally do so for very little compensation, compared to what the work actually would cost in another business environment.
Now that I am not announcing anything until its completed, everyone is asking for announcements and think the project is dead and nothing is happening. There is no pleasing everyone here. Any project that has been announced, has always been, and is been worked on. Of course there have been delays and problems to solve, but things have always moved forward. Again, it's easy to forget that you are dealing with a lot of different people, working in different teams, and speaking different languages, as everyone is spread out around the world. Time zones become something you need to think about and factor in.
Have there been major NXT updates? We told the community that the client would not receive new features, unique to HZ because people don't use them...If NXT wants to keep building their features out, that is great, and we will make updates to the client if there is something that can be an asset to the platform, and something people are interested in using.
Of course, everything is a matter of perspective, and you can only form that perspective on what you see, and what you know. The inner workings of a long standing project, as is Horizon are made possible by a small amount of people, devoting a lot of their own time and money. There have been plenty of technical, and social problems that have risen and fallen in the past, and I believe if it weren't for that continued effort by people, the project could have failed to exist more than once in the past year and a half.
So as a summary of the key points:
Horizon - Not dead.
Developments that have been previously announced (without dates) are still alive and moving forward.
Participation between the community and development team is focused on slack, and you can (and always have been) able to reach people on Slack.
We have received little response from people in the foundation, but the foundation is still there, and any requests are voted on there.
Team is active, just not announcing anything unless its finished.