Earlier quoted context omitted.
You make sweeping claims like > Technologies like Updn and valME are about upending the entire revenue model for news, social media, blogs, forums, and search engines Yet this site looks only marginally more alive than, say Digg. You've provided a content /aggregation/ site that you now have to pay for in order to actually contribute or effect in any way. It isn't really about the amount or the method in which you pa…
valME is young, granted. That doesn't discount the idea. Yes, any content provider can throw money (via fake accounts, advertising, etc.) at their own content to increase visibility. That's why advertising works. On sites like reddit and FB, it costs the content providers effectively nothing to manipulate votes. On sites like valME and Updn, there will be a (minimal) cost. It's a small barrier for manipulation, but a…
But that's offset by the sheer volume of people who can freely vote. If you have a system where a vote is a payment, you'll likely have a >95% reduction of legitimate voters, and likely a much higher amount of "gamed" voters as a result. Remember, corporations and governments have more money to spend than the average person. I.e. All governments/corporations can afford to spend money + some individuals can spend money. Compare that with: All governments/corporations can freely upvote + all individuals can freely upvote. Requiring money actually skews voting in the wrong direction.
That's why I think Reddit made a smart decision when they implemented Reddit guilding for top-level comments. They did it in such a way that guilding doesn't affect voting, and guilded comments can't even be seen from the homepage--otherwise it would skew the results.
I do totally agree about other ways to support creators, though. I think it's crucial for sites like StackOverflow to implement direct tipping for users' efforts.