https://github.com/lgrahl, by “which umbrella organisation”, which organizations do you think are setup / intended to handle incubation efforts that are not yet ready for standardization? Or do you think there is already something that has been incubated that is ready for standardization? If so, could you link to what in particular and where it was incubated?
While I am a fan of doing standardization work @WHATWG (and @W3C and @IETF, depending on which is most appropriate accordingly), I will point out that WHATWG themselves note that they “anticipate features will be “incubated” outside of WHATWG standards” per https://whatwg.org/working-mode#new-proposals
You also referenced W3C’s paid membership model. Note that W3C Community Groups (which this is a proposal for) are open to all (anyone may participate) and without fee (no membership is required) per https://www.w3.org/community/about/
The existing W3C CG WICG https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/ has a fairly good track record for incubating proposals in their GitHub repos which then either graduate to a working group (some have gone to W3C, others to WHATWG), or incubation stalls/fails as a result of discovering an area or proposal is unworkable or lacks market interest etc.
Are there other incubation-friendly/centric organizations that you think would be a better home for a dweb/p2p incubation group than a W3C CG?