
Reddit rolls out community currencies on Ethereum - lftherios
https://www.coindesk.com/reddit-rolls-out-community-points-on-ethereum-to-incentivize-positive-behavior
======
Sargos
/r/EthTrader tried this with Donuts a while ago and it led to a community
split to /r/EthFinance from all of the drama. Adding a monetary reward for
comments and posts really skews the incentives of the community members who
choose to participate. When you tie things like this to governance (your coins
affect your vote weight on the polls) it really creates a perverse incentive
for commercial products to come in and create astroturfing content to farm
coins.

I think this is a neat experiment and it will be fun to watch what happens but
I'm skeptical that this moves the subreddits in a positive direction.

~~~
dehrmann
> Adding a monetary reward for comments and posts really skews the incentives
> of the community members who choose to participate

People like to complain about FOX New's conservative bias (and to a lesser
extent MSNBC's liberal bias), but they miss the fact that their real bias is
towards viewership, and they've become news entertainment products, not
sources of journalism.

~~~
ouid
I think this is a rather naive view of Fox News. There's a lot of money to be
made in propaganda as well.

~~~
vertis
To put it another way, there is a lot of money to be made with confirmation
bias.

------
flixic
I've been part of r/EthTrader that is one of the subreddits that has this
feature and had it for about 2 years now.

Dynamics within subreddit members got so bad that the subreddit split, and now
almost all the action happens in r/EthFinance that does not have any community
currency. The main deterioration was actually corruption. Because "karma" had
monetary values and "karma monetary policy" could be set by admins, there was
massive concentration of wealth for mods, with no incentive to change the
rules.

~~~
cslarson
EthTrader now has 5% of distribution allocated to mods (changed by community
vote). Initially it was 15% (I agree this was too high). These two new subs
will be at 10% for the mods. Monetary policy was only influenced by mods for
the initial distribution which was set at 15%. After that it required a vote
and eventually it did get lowered.

------
brodouevencode
All this in the wake of:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitwbo/p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitwbo/pointing_out_how_much_power_few_people_have_gets/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/gjedc1/uroo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/gjedc1/urootintootin_putin_exposes_moderator_monopoly_of/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/gifi24/92_of_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/gifi24/92_of_the_top_500_subs_are_controlled_by_the_same/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

In reddit parlance: "tfw internet points becomes more of a real thing, also
<something something political>"

~~~
ve55
The craziest thing about this isn't just that so many people are controlling
the literal news feeds to millions of others, but that they can do so while
being anonymous, were not chosen or elected in any reasonable way, have zero
accountability, and do not even have a public record of _what_ they delete and
censor

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
It’s much worse than that. It’s not many people, it’s a very small number that
“run” Reddit.

92 of the top 500 subs are controlled by 5 people. [0]

Yesterday this post was locked, and so many of the comments were removed by
mods with no self-aware irony at all - I just checked and saw very few
[REMOVED] posts, I think they removed the evidence they removed them - crazy.
Check ceddit.

Two mods, Cyxie and AwkwardTheTurtle moderate 1196 subreddits. They have more
control over content on reddit than Sinclair Media has over news stations.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/fko21a/9...](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/fko21a/92_out_of_the_top_500_subreddits_on_reddit_are/)

~~~
intended
This is almost certainly a storm in a teacup.

I saw this and went to check - in the few subs i confirmed, they are not top
mods. Top mods have the actual power, to assume that they are setting the
agenda for every sub by being the 14th mod out of 28, or the 9th and so on is
impossible, given how fractious moderating teams can be.

Drama is leaking into HN without anyone doing a sanity check on the claims.

~~~
jshevek
>Drama is leaking into HN

This is the most important comment on this page. The reasons for this are
varied, but it's pretty obvious that cultural changes have occurred on HN
during this pandemic.

~~~
dvtrn
I think they’ve been here for a while, personally.

~~~
jshevek
The undercurrent has always been there, but the degree of normalization
appears to be cycling.

~~~
dvtrn
what indicators have you found most relevant during these cycles?

------
jondubois
I already know what's going to happen:

1\. They will launch.

2\. They will find out that Ethereum doesn't scale.

3\. They will move to an off-chain solution.

On the plus side, the extra demand generated by Reddit will boost Ethereum
transaction fees to insane levels which is going to make the Ethereum price go
up (because higher fees = more lucrative mining). Then the Ethereum/Reddit
insiders who organized this elaborate corporate scam are going to cash out.

I can't believe how quickly people forgot about CryptoKitties. Surely Reddit
developers know about Ethereum's limits.

It seems that we have entered into a new economic era. It's called "Let's use
cryptocurrency as a way to collaboratively fool our corporate employers for
personal profit".

1\. Find a big corporation whose managers are naive enough to agree to
participate in some hyped up and non-scalable blockchain project.

2\. Convince your managers to start such a project and do it in such a way
that this project is going to boost demand for cryptocurrency X.

3\. Employees buy cryptocurrency X.

4\. Project launches, cryptocurrency X struggles to handle the load and as a
result, transaction fees skyrocket, sharply driving up the token price.

5\. Employees sell their cryptocurrency X at the peak.

6\. Users complain about high fees. Employer realizes that this is not going
to work and abandons the project.

7\. Price crashes back to what it was before. Corporate employees are pleased
with their profits. Corporation has no clue that they've just been scammed by
their own employees. End users of the service who had to actually pay for the
transaction fees paid for most of the cost.

Companies should be launching their own blockchains, not ERC-20 tokens; that
only benefits Ethereum.

~~~
illumin8
Alternatively, Reddit could roll this out slowly and give Ethereum 2.0 a
chance to land. By 2021/2022 when Ethereum 2.0 Phase 2 lands, scalability of
Ethereum should be much greater than it is today and it should be a solved
problem.

Also, most of the transactions between Reddit users can be done off chain if
needed. I'm not sure how they've designed their architecture, but it does make
sense to aggregate multiple transactions into fewer, big transactions instead
of small microtransactions for every comment.

~~~
jondubois
>> Reddit could roll this out slowly and give Ethereum 2.0 a chance to land

This is a very optimistic proposition. I think they might never get there.
Based on what I read so far, I have concerns that the final solution will be
too complex, brittle and vulnerable.

~~~
hanniabu
Sounds like you've been reading hit pieces by bitcoin maximalists.

------
jetrink
This brings to mind Carmen Hermosillo's 1994 essay, Pandora's Vox: On
Community in Cyberspace[1].

i have seen many people spill their guts on–line, and i did so myself until,
at last, i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification means
that you turn something into a product which has a money–value. [...] i
created my interior thoughts as a means of production for the corporation that
owned the board i was posting to, and that commodity was being sold to other
commodity/consumer entities as entertainment. that means that i sold my soul
like a tennis shoe and i derived no profit from the sale of my soul.

1\.
[http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2299](http://folksonomy.co/?permalink=2299)

~~~
mc32
It’s great she had this self realization , but it doesn’t change things. It’s
like being the friend that’s full of great advice but doesn’t get any in
return. Or the friend who has the car and is always sought out for rides.
After a while they may feel burned out overburdened or they feel like they
contribute to humanity or whatever...

What I mean is this calculus happens regardless of medium.

And what about paying professionals to hear you out years on end?

~~~
ardy42
>> i have seen many people spill their guts on–line, and i did so myself
until, at last, i began to see that i had commodified myself. commodification
means that you turn something into a product which has a money–value. [...] i
created my interior thoughts as a means of production for the corporation that
owned the board i was posting to, and that commodity was being sold to other
commodity/consumer entities as entertainment. that means that i sold my soul
like a tennis shoe and i derived no profit from the sale of my soul.

> It’s like being the friend that’s full of great advice but doesn’t get any
> in return. Or the friend who has the car and is always sought out for rides.

No it isn't like that. What you're describing is giving in the context of
human relationship, but what she's describing is more like being exploited for
someone else's profit (e.g. we'll pay you in "exposure").

~~~
dehrmann
> commodification means that you turn something into a product which has a
> money–value.

Nit: you probably mean something more like "productized" or "marketed," not
"commoditized." Commoditized implies something _worse_ than what you're
saying, that not only have you sold your feelings and thoughts online, _that
they 're indistinguishable from anyone else's_.

~~~
ardy42
>[>>]> commodification means that you turn something into a product which has
a money–value.

> Nit: you probably mean...

That was a quote. You probably meant to go back in time to 1994 to nitpick
humdog herself.

------
montenegrohugo
I understand the need for rewarding valuable community contributors. Even if
Reddit, Hackernews and other Forums have traditionally worked in a voluntary
fashion. And this is certainly some cool tech and a showcase of how
cryptocurrencies can be useful.

That said, this measure will just lead to bots reposting (or in the near
future generating GPT-2 like garbage) content in order to farm community
points/ethereum.

As soon as you add in a financial incentive the whole situation gets ugly.

~~~
calmworm
This coupled with the recent thread will be interesting ...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23173018)

There are multiple sub-reddits that are essentially just karma farms already.

I'm curious how this will play out.

------
thinkmassive
My first thought was whether this would require a browser with an Ethereum
wallet (Status.im, Brave, Metamask, etc) to participate. It sounds like
they're building this into the Reddit mobile app:

> In order to start contributing, users need to sign up to the "Vault,"
> Reddit's local blockchain wallet, accessed via scanning a QR code through
> the official Reddit app.

It's not clear whether the Reddit mobile app is becoming a full web3 browser,
but this makes it sound like there's a real wallet in there:

> There is a warning though. A private key is provided once a user creates
> their Vault, which is stored locally on their smart device. Meaning if the
> user doesn't create a back up of their key and loses their phone, they will
> be unable to access their community points, with Reddit claiming even they
> will be unable to help.

Cryptocurrency wallets are way too complicated for most people to use
properly. It should be interesting to see if Reddit can raise the bar with an
open solution. Hopefully it isn't some pointless proprietary implementation
that actually uses a "proof of authority" network (aka shitty database).

~~~
thinkmassive
Oh, I overlooked this tidbit that makes it sound like other web3 browsers
should work:

> Reddit has stated that since most users don't own any ETH, the social
> platform is ready to cover the cost of gas "for now," for those using its
> in-built Vault, but those using other Ethereum wallets may be required to
> pay for the cost of gas themselves.

~~~
flarex
They also encourage users to store private keys on reddit's servers, user
password encrypted.

------
127
Why does it need to be decentralized? It's kind of stupid that just to avoid
legal roadblocks like selling a security, Reddit will use a decentralized
blockchain instead of just a database. There's no technical reason for it,
just legal and political.

~~~
b_fiive
"just legal and political"

~~~
dehrmann
It doesn't look like anything with actual value is being traded? All I got
from the story was that "political" means reddit admins can't take away
someone's tokens.

------
Klonoar
One thing I never see talked about with this kind of stuff is taxes.

e.g, when Stellar was aidropped to Keybase users, that's... technically the
start of a taxable chain of events. I donated mine to the Freedom of the Press
foundation, and thus had to report it.

I had a time of it back during the second crypto craze, which I'm thankfully
out of. I know how to report this crap. I am not sure, to this day, whether
joe schmoe average user even realizes they have to.

So in this case my question becomes: is Reddit foisting a tax liability on
their users without them understanding this? Does this ever come up in
discussion and I've just missed it entirely?

~~~
Sargos
This is probably one of the first instances that will trigger congress to fix
the tax laws for crypto. There will be many more. The current tax code is
written for corporate investors and foreign exchange traders, which have
little bearing on game tokens, community tokens, and other use cases that will
exist. These use cases are not going away and normal people are not going to
suddenly file a few hundred pages of transactions on their capital gains forms
just because they used some apps.

~~~
Klonoar
I think that's a very optimistic outlook, but I'm not sure it fits with a
realistic viewpoint that they're taxed that way because people treat them like
stocks, not cash.

At any rate, I would like to see Reddit acknowledge this.

------
goda90
I think a big reason I use Reddit as much as I do, is the availability of two
things. old.reddit.com, and third party mobile apps(I use an open source one
that I've modified to my liking). This is yet another feature that won't ever
work on those. I forget Reddit even has chat, which is available in
old.reddit.com, but feels so disconnected from the experience that I don't
even care.

~~~
theocs
Given that these tokens follow the ERC 20 standard, I don't see why other
clients can't just integrate support if they want.

------
_curious_
"Users can hoard their points or spend them on unique features such as badges,
custom emojis and GIFs in comments."

GIFs...in...comments? That will quickly lead to a worsening user experience,
who thought this was a good idea?

"In the Reddit app your wallet is a full Ethereum wallet that has a private
key and recovery phrase. You are able to use that wallet anywhere you would
normally use an Ethereum wallet by exporting it."

Does this mean it can be converted to (or spent like) cash?

~~~
RandomBacon
Yes, and on reddit's Cryptocurrency sub, there are already people asking how
to buy it.

~~~
_curious_
That's interesting, and to be expected from that sub, but how is Reddit going
to comply with KYC if this implementation is to scale and their currency can
also be transferred/used as cash?

~~~
jedieaston
Do normal crypto exchanges have to do KYC, and if so, doesn't that take away
the anonymity?

~~~
_curious_
Yes and yes

------
lftherios
a more detailed post with product screenshots and economics can be found here
[https://medium.com/@adamscochran/reddit-jumps-into-loot-
toke...](https://medium.com/@adamscochran/reddit-jumps-into-loot-tokens-with-
new-cryptocurrency-on-ethereum-3109a4b1eae4)

------
fouc
Impressive, now there's finally a killer app for cyrptocurrency, and it looks
like it's starting with reddit.

~~~
catalogia
By killer app, you mean something so egregiously bad it might finally kill
reddit? We can only hope.

~~~
kylek
"Pulling a keybase"

------
udia
How on earth did people ever post quality content on the internet without it
being monetized? /sarcasm

Would this new feature would reward users any more than the existing
karma/gilding mechanism? I am skeptical that the typical Reddit user would
have even have a cryptocurrency wallet.

~~~
api
From what I've seen monetization is usually associated with a sharp drop in
content quality, at least for open platforms.

The platform usually assumes that monetization will cause market forces to
drive the production of quality content. What usually ends up happening is
that it drives the production of _addictive_ content. That means repetitive,
catchy, click bait, sensationalism, hate/fear porn, and trolling.

The very worst sorts of content are what drives engagement.

YouTube is the best example. It used to contain a good amount of quality
content. Then they threw the monetization switch. There is still good content,
but it's diamonds buried in an increasingly vast pile of shit.

~~~
mjburgess
Well in the YT case it seems that you're relying on content creators passion
for creation to substitute for paid labour.

There's an argument to say a system built on such a premise is exploitative.

Either way, I don't really have a strong intuition for how incentives will
work here. At the very least, a barrier-to-posting will filter out some bad
actors and some good actors.

~~~
api
I agree there too. I have long criticized Medium as a magazine with unpaid
writers. I was specifically speaking to the quality question, not to the other
aspects of the platform and its economics and ethics.

------
gitgud
So it's kind of like Reddit gold? but needlessly decentralised?

~~~
cslarson
These points are awarded based on contribution to specific subs and can be
used within the local economy of that sub as monetary unit as well as for
influence in governance (original earned points matter here so influence isn't
directly purchasable).

This isn't like Reddit gold but more of a fundamental new tool for Reddit
communities to experiment with.

------
floren
Remember when Keybase rolled out free crypto for users, and it was immediately
flooded by fake accounts, people were trying to hack github accounts to beef
up their new Keybase user, etc? The Keybase community on reddit was overrun
with idiots begging for help getting crypto, and whining that they weren't
getting crypto.

I'm sure there will be no negative repercussions when rolling out a system
that gives you money for posting pun chains and XKCD links.

~~~
lftherios
I think that you are confusing two things. An airdrop with "free money" and an
actual experience with community points and collectibles (like badges) that
you mainly earn.

~~~
floren
People currently pay Reddit real actual useful money (dirty fiat) for stupid
shit... so if they instead say "You can buy these things for Posting Points,
earned whenever you get t3h upd00ts", well, I expect people in poor countries
to start posting like mad in the hopes of getting Posting Points which they
can resell to Americans and other people with more money than sense.

~~~
lobotryas
Sounds like gear and gold grinding services for popular games/MMOs in Asia in
decades past.

~~~
dane-pgp
I wonder what happened to the people running those MMO gold farms...?

[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/steve-bannon-
world-o...](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/steve-bannon-world-of-
warcraft-gold-farming.html)

------
CM30
This seems like a bad idea. Any kind of monetary reward for using a community
site shifts the incentives of the people that post there, and encourages low
quality posts on the off chance they'll get rich from them.

Is it as bad as it could be? Depending on how it's implemented no; a system
that just rewards points like this automatically is far worse than one that
can be used to tip people for good work.

But the incentive shifts it brings are similar, and can be very, very bad for
the future of a community or social network.

Just ask DigitalPoint. Ages ago they used to allow people to earn money from
the ads displayed in topics they'd posted in via an adsense revenue sharing
scheme.

The end result? The site's post quality took a serious nosedive, as people
from low income countries signed up en masse to try and earn what they saw as
'easy' money. People used meaningless one liners in every topic on the off
chance they'd get ad revenue there, or posted new topics with thin content for
the same reason.

The site's reputation pretty much collapsed due to this, and even now it's not
exactly seen as a place where meaningful discussions take place.

Same sort of goes for Quora too. We all know they pay people for posting
questions, so now we get a ton of pointless questions that no one actually
cares about because there's money involved.

So I'm not exactly thrilled by this announcement, nor about the effects it
could have on Reddit as a whole if implemented site wide.

------
ihuman
Didn't reddit announce/kill something like this when bitcoin first got big?
This page is giving me some deja vu.

~~~
333c
I also remember them making this announcement (and it wasn't Dogecoin, as the
other commenter says). I can't seem to find an announcement about this though.

~~~
ihuman
I was able to find it. It was called "Reddit Notes"

[https://redditblog.com/2015/12/19/announcing-reddit-
notes/](https://redditblog.com/2015/12/19/announcing-reddit-notes/)

[https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/3/7968397/reddit-
backtracks-...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/3/7968397/reddit-backtracks-
reddit-notes-cryptocurrency)

------
solotronics
I don't mind the little badge trinkets you get on reddit right now to pay for
a reward for someones post you like. This isn't that at all this will suck.
There will be a ridiculous amount of farming / shilling / astroturfing.

------
uncletammy
This isn't the first time Reddit has tried something like this.

Back around 2015 they hired a dev called Ryan X Charles to build a Bitcoin
based rewards system into Reddit.

[https://ryanxcharlestimes.com/fix-reddit-with-
bitcoin-7da3f8...](https://ryanxcharlestimes.com/fix-reddit-with-
bitcoin-7da3f85fb9ba)

It proved to be a difficult task because it was right about the time that the
Bitcoin core devs started actively discouraging Bitcoin's use in payments.
This paired with a new investment round at Reddit resulted in the project
being abandoned.

I do believe if they had seen this project through, Reddit would be in a much
more healthy state right now

------
ilaksh
You have to realize that there is a difference between popular posts and
quality posts.

For example, I am the main moderator on r/robots these days. When I came in, I
got feedback from the users to clarify the content that belongs in the
subreddit. They indicated that they wanted about equally to post about robotic
art as well as real robots. Right now about 70% of posts are about real robots
and 30% are about robot art or something called that.

But my point is, the posts that get upvotes are generally not the quality
posts. The things that determine upvotes are number one, how easy is it to
consume? So if it's a GIF rather than a video, it is likely to receive at
least 10 times as many upvotes.

Maybe tied for number one, does it have some kind of base emotional effect?
Most of the time means, is it sexual or vaguely sexual? Sometimes that means,
does it look kind of like a cute baby robot?

Another one is, is it reductionistic? In other words, headlines or overall
posts that tend to over-simplify something tend to be more popular.

Another one: randomness affects vote count significantly. Also, vote
manipulation seems to be a factor. When we had some seemingly 'professional'
redditors come in that really, really wanted to be mods and I let them for a
couple of days, it seemed like they must have been willing to do anything to
get their posts upvoted. And also to mod any and all subs that would let them.
Which is why I kicked them out.

But the point of this is that in-depth videos of real robots will get few
upvotes just because they are longer, and the ones that do better may just
have good thumbnails but aren't actually good videos.

Which is to say that I have been watching the judgement of our community
closely for months, and the posts that receive upvotes are absolutely not the
best posts in general. I mean, sometimes good ones get upvotes. But sometimes
they are ignored and utter trash gets upvoted.

It's really changed my perspective on democracy. Sometimes I want to quit
being a mod there, but I am not sure the other mods care enough to bother
remove the ads and spam that pop up every week or so masquerading as normal
posts.

------
robmerki
Hopefully this can incentivize for better moderation. Many subreddits have
become the empires of power hungry "volunteers" who carefully prune wrongthink
content.

~~~
ardy42
> Hopefully this can incentivize for better moderation. Many subreddits have
> become the empires of power hungry "volunteers" who carefully prune
> wrongthink content.

Wouldn't it make it worse? The more vigorously you ciclejerk, the more the
jerk will reward you with a _brand new_ kind of e-points.

I think too many people but too much faith in quantified reward mechanisms.

~~~
robmerki
You are absolutely right, which is why I was "hoping". I just had an awful
experience with a power tripping moderator on a mental health related
subreddit. I have no recourse, I just had to move on.

------
burtonator
Community currencies are REALLY interesting in that it allows for local
inflation but also prevents currencies in one community from dominating
opposing communities.

For example, if there was a currency for 'coal' then the 'environmental'
community could basically reject that currency.

Right now if coal mining makes a ton of money that's all that matters. They
can dominate the local economy.

~~~
rewoi
Not really. Most 'green' cars are in fact burning coal.

------
MaximumMadness
Does anyone have thoughts on why they included r/Fortnite in the initial beta?

My best guess is that it sees such high traffic & is populated with non-crypto
focused Reddit users. Let's the company get a big dataset with a group of
consumers who aren't predisposed to Crypto.

I reached out to Reddit for comment but they just gave me a classic canned
response.

~~~
cslarson
This launch involves two subs, r/fortnitebr and r/cryptocurrency, and builds
from an existing _centralised_ version that r/fornitebr, among a few others,
was already using. So this moves their _points_ onto the Ethereum blockchain.
It is indeed interesting to expose non-crypto users to the Ethereum version.
For instance, of the two subs r/fortnitebr has so far 4x the number of
transactions and new addresses despite being roughly comparable in subscriber
size (it has more active visitors by roughly 2.5x). Personally i think that
speaks commendably to the ux that Reddit has been able to achieve.

------
sl1ck731
Just what Reddit needs, an even better reason for bots and reposting. It will
be interesting to watch this play out.

With all of the changes in the past year or two of the Reddit team trying to
monetize it in any way they can I've noticed I find less and less interesting
content.

~~~
donmcronald
Yeah, "we want to encourage positive behavior, so we added money" doesn't
strike me as being realistic.

I'm sure the real goal is to sell tokens and to shift to a microtransaction
model where users have to pay for "premium" features. That's why there's a
hard cap on tokens and they're consumed on use.

Worse though, I think it might be an underhanded way to sell influence for
money if it doesn't stay a closed system. While the users are distracted with
"premium" stickers and emojis, bad actors will be paying real money to buy
visibility and influence.

For me, the appeal of Reddit is that I can jump in and participate and it's
fairly democratic, at least in the smaller subreddits. As soon as they turn it
into money = visibility = credibility it's ruined.

------
Taylor_OD
I talked to someone years ago who was brought on at Reddit to help do
something similar but ran into issues with the coins potentially being
construed as equity in the company.

Looks like they figured it out.

------
ComputerGuru
I don’t understand where the money is coming from? Are VCs providing the
initial pot of ETH that will be (re)distributed to power posters?

~~~
tyrust
It's a token, not ETH. Basically it's a made up ledger that is stored in the
Ethereum blockchain. The only way money comes into the picture is that moving
tokens around in the ledger costs Gas (think of Gas like mining fees for BTC),
which is paid for with ETH. As the article says, Reddit is paying Gas costs
for now.

~~~
ComputerGuru
But I don’t see how any of this scales. How does it go from “VCs covering the
tab for now” to something else?

~~~
tyrust
Neither do I, but does it have to? Like any business, Reddit has ways that it
makes money and ways that it spends money. This could be considered valuable
[0] enough to the site that they continue to cover the costs of running it.

[0] - By driving more traffic, more engagement, better content, and/or other
intangibles.

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caogecym
Can people buy Reddit coin with US dollars? If so, it sounds like an
alternative to invest in Reddit and share the success of the company.

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Mindwipe
So Reddit will literally pay me to use their official app over a third party
client?

Yeah, still no deal.

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ddevault
If you didn't think Reddit hadn't already jumped the shark, this is definitive
proof.

And to pre-empt the replies: no, I don't want to hear a defense of whatever
ponzi scheme you've sunk 10 grand into. Cryptocurrency is the MLM of tech.

~~~
SiempreViernes
The crucial question is if subreddits will be able to completely keeps
themselves out of this wild scheme, I don't think r/AskHistorians is going to
appreciate getting this weird distortion imposed on their existing incentive
structure for instance.

------
corobo
Bit late for an April Fools, reddit

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seibelj
I think this definitely answers "what is blockchain good for". It will allow
subreddits to monetize effectively and encourage users to post quality content
using economic incentives.

~~~
M2Ys4U
>I think this definitely answers "what is blockchain good for"

I thought we had already arrived at the answer to that: "nothing (good)"

~~~
exdsq
There are some interesting use cases being looked at by big companies such as
Microsoft’s decentralised identity provider, Starbucks for coffee supply
chains, and Many banks for interbank transfers etc.

------
aiyodev
Why this is a recipe for disaster: 92 of the top 500 reddit subs are
controlled by just 5 accounts.

[https://files.catbox.moe/q8f49d.png](https://files.catbox.moe/q8f49d.png)

------
c_prompt
Not exactly the way I proposed it to Steve Huffman [1] but happy to see reddit
experimenting with the idea of value for value. A few questions they hopefully
will try to answer:

1\. Does trading values (e.g., money for content) make for a more peaceful
environment in social networks and other online communities?

2\. Does allowing an easy and voluntary way to reward content creators improve
the quality of the content (e.g., higher accuracy, fact-based arguments,
better ideas, more toleration of different ideas)?

3\. Can users make enough money from content creation without relying on
advertising (thus disrupting journalism and even removing the draw for
companies to sell private information)?

4\. Will users start to think in terms of exchanging values and, if so, will
these thoughts then spillover to other parts of their lives?

[1] [https://valme.io/c/journal/c_prompt/f5qqs/an-open-letter-
to-...](https://valme.io/c/journal/c_prompt/f5qqs/an-open-letter-to-steve-
huffman-reddits-new-ceo-with-an-offer-to-exchange-values)

~~~
mdszy
Saying "I proposed it to Steve Huffman" when in fact it's just an open letter
is pretty disingenuous.

