It’s not that they are competing, as some of the suggested domains for QB are outside of Encode. I think both programs can run together since they tackle it in different ways, but we should be careful about throwing money around unless it will make an impact. I.e. avoid overlap in bounties and grants.
The selection process should continue since multichain/crosschain and education are outside of Encode, and I support Encode acting as a DDA for one of the other domains. By the time encode is aware of their bounties, it should be made publicly, so the relevant DDAs can prepare to adjust their domain documents for potential grantees.
As you suggest having two DDAs for a specific domain is a better move and promotes competition but also diverse experience which is something we should consider.
In the end, we are happy to support Questbooks DDA with $50k per domain, $1k cap per month as comp and would like to see Encode as one of DDAs.