Again, that paper is interesting because in that specific case the results were counter-intuitive. In the overwhelming majority of instance a financial reward is an incentive.
Parking fines work because people respond more strongly to the monetary incentive than to stern looks. Paying doctors high wages works because monetary incentives work better than handshakes from patients. You don't get a paper published for that, because it's obvious.
And what's interesting about this experiment is that it's not an aberration. This has been replicated over and over and over again, for nearly 40 years. These contingent motivators -- if you do this, then you get that -- work in some circumstances. But for a lot of tasks, they actually either don't work or, often, they do harm. This is one of the most robust findings in social science, and also one of the most ignored.https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/transcript I'm linking to a TED talk transcript because it makes the point better than I can.
>In the overwhelming majority of instance a financial reward is an incentive.
I don't believe this is true. I know numerous studies have shown that, for example, software developers enjoy their work less and feel less in control of it the more they are paid to work on it.
This case does not necessarily apply to Tor nodes, since one does not really do any persistent "work" when running one. But the concept of monetary incentive is definitely not nearly as shallow as you make it out to be.
I think you may be misinterpreting the studies. Generally speaking, there are very few people on the planet that are demoralized by being paid a lot.
Demoralization can happen when the social situation emphasizes pay as the only reward. The problem isn't that the pay is not an incentive, but the lack of social rewards acts as a disincentive.
If I tell you that I love the quality of the lemonade you are making for customers and I want to give you a raise so you will be happy to work longer hours making such great lemonade you will feel very appreciated and motivated.
If in the exact same situation I tell you that we need more lemonade and I know you don't want to work more but I am going to give you money so you need to do it, you are going to feel very differently. Its not that the money wouldn't have been an incentive, its that it is presented as if that is all you care about, which means your personal character and work ethic are being ignored. Very demoralizing.
Parking fines work because people respond more strongly to the monetary incentive than to stern looks. Paying doctors high wages works because monetary incentives work better than handshakes from patients. You don't get a paper published for that, because it's obvious.