Vitalik responded to a comment about "Zuzalu, Apecoin Governance Forum, Arbitrum DAO's gatekeeping level" by saying: "Technically, any currency is permissioned: you need permission from an existing holder to become a holder.
This suggests that there is actually a constant trade-off between the permission levels of Apecoin and ZuVillage, and we can imagine structures in the middle: becoming a member requires permission from multiple existing members, but it is still very open. For example, you can imagine a quadratic funding style mechanism weighted by existing member points to accumulate member points. This is what I would like to see in OP Citizens House, Zuzalu Community, and other DAOs that are experimenting. Formalizing and measuring membership is upstream of any formalized governance, and it would be really cool if there were more ways to get formal membership that is highly decentralized and permissionless, but at the same time not just token holdings."