Diamond Member. 1000 votes.
I vote that the MEW is dissolved and the funds donated to the only large-scale Monero Economy initiative born within the MEW, Crypto Kingdom, and there, specifically, the Devfund: ingame pool account taking care of the technical development of the game platform.
If we consider the alternatives, the ones that are somewhat legitimate and easy to accomplish - considering the sum is only about $2000, which does not warrant excessive considerations nor practicalities - they are 1) giving the money to core team 2) giving the money to members.
Of these, the 1) is not legitimate. MEW was expressly established to be a counter to the core team, yet 50% of the contributions were decided to be given to the core team to ensure that their work proceeds correctly and also because there were no pressing uses for the membership donations. To put it bluntly, donating the rest of the funds to the core team "goes against everything MEW stands for". Anyone who was there remembers this.
And 2) is not practical. Since the inception of MEW, the value of XMR has declined greatly and the once-large donation of $100 or $1000 has declined in value to be trivial. The ones who donated little, stand to gain even less, and the ones who donated much, have much more remaining. (Taking the 50% initial cut to the core team into account, only about 10% of the value remains and we have collectively more important things to do.
As for the MEW-discount, it has been changed to MEW-bonus:
- The MEW membership fee qualifies as 25% bonus gold. If you are a diamond member, you are entitled to 250 XMR worth of extra gold if you buy 1,000 XMR worth. If you are a gold member, a purchase of 100 XMR gives 25 XMR extra. Diamond member may also purchase with 100 XMR and in this case will get 25 XMR extra etc. Gold member may purchase with 1,000 XMR but in this case get only 25 XMR extra.
As a member of MEW, you already had the chance to gain free CKG valued more than your contribution to the MEW. (Price of gold was 0.05-0.28 XMR during the opportunity.) Overall, CK is valued at about 1,500,000 XMR and is almost completely owned by the members of the MEW, with many enriched 10x already. Merging the MEW to its offspring would be a most suitable next step in the saga of Monero.