Interesting concept and I think it’s definitely worth the experiment!
If I understand the premise, what you’re trying to avoid is a hub effect (the rich getting richer) becuase traditionally users see messages already curated (e.g. with highest upvotes) and the idea is to replace that with an incentive for discovering new content.
Unless you have a way to define new content, wont you run into the same problem but now with $ tokens? E.g. one of the most upvoted news from HN is “Steve Jobs has died”. I imagine even on your system users would assume this would raise to the top and would buy a lot of “shares”, so it becomes more of a game of “predicting what will be further upvoted / echo chambered”. Am I missing something?
> what you’re trying to avoid is a hub effect (the rich getting richer)
Coincidentally, this is a problem in real markets that the invisible hand does not solve, either. Economic success is to large degree predicated on being fastest to market, as well.
Online, the outcome is attention inequality instead of revenue or wealth inequality. In real markets, that's when government has to step in and regulate. What equivalent is there for a content aggregator? Moderators? Curators?
I would say this is likely a sign that content aggregation sites have - in democratising content curation - finally come full circle with the curated content of old in the form of magazines and the like. Maybe there is something to be said for leaving the curation to the pros after all, or considering the limitations to the wisdom of crowds.
It's definitely a risk. That said, I'd argue that a post announcing "Steve Jobs has died" genuinely should rise to the top - it's a huge piece of news after all.
This model isn't so much about suppressing existing highly upvoted content, but rather finding content that should have been upvoted but was missed.
There's still a threat from meme-worthy content though. Honestly, I think this comes down to the initial community setting expectations that meme-worthy content will be shorted into oblivion, and reinforcing that culture.
If I understand the premise, what you’re trying to avoid is a hub effect (the rich getting richer) becuase traditionally users see messages already curated (e.g. with highest upvotes) and the idea is to replace that with an incentive for discovering new content.
Unless you have a way to define new content, wont you run into the same problem but now with $ tokens? E.g. one of the most upvoted news from HN is “Steve Jobs has died”. I imagine even on your system users would assume this would raise to the top and would buy a lot of “shares”, so it becomes more of a game of “predicting what will be further upvoted / echo chambered”. Am I missing something?
Again, exciting project nevertheless.