> If more companies became DAOs, we'd have much better checks and balances and transparency for corporations.

Why on earth would any corporation ever want to become a DAO?

The transparency benefit there is roughly that a DAO must, by design, not be able to keep any secrets, since it's incapable of having nonpublic state. Similarly, the "checks and balances" benefit seems to be just "more literal enforcement of contracts".

Is there a positive advantage, something doable with a DAO that's not doable with just "a court system", besides doing illegal things where you can't rely on courts (which is, at least, a valid use case)?

And note, too, courts already exist, and there are plenty of folks with very exciting weapons eager to enforce their judgements. Your smart contract's bytecode may say you don't have to pay somebody, but if the sherriff's office shows up to start seizing your assets... Well!

Or do DOAs become more like our current political conundrum, where it's a popularity contest full of opinionated misinformation with people who don't have the expertise or time to become sufficiently informed.

With a DAG based voting proxy, there may be interesting applications within a business. Like putting support behind higher ups or something like support for RFCs. I'd expect anything applied to the wide population to be manipulated.