Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#51

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 12:44 AM UTC

jn1234 wrote: post #45

dubfan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so you end up with these subreddits full of people reaffirming each other's viewpoints. Nobody wants to hear anything challenging their views, but at the same time they stomp their feet and whine without a hint of irony, "why doesn't the other side just get it?" This also leads to schisms resulting in vicious infighting. It's pretty much the complete opposite of an environment conducive to intellectual develop…

There is extreme group think in subreddits like /r/politics and /r/libertarian. The main problem is that the quality of content degrades extremely quickly as the community grows. It has been eternal september there since Digg v4.

Is that unexpected though? Or even a necessarily negative thing? I don't think so - especially in the case of a political ideology discussion forum like /r/libertarian, most of the people who went there to seek it out and subscribe to it, more likely than not, share those beliefs.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#52

Post by drpgq » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 12:53 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #5

This seems like an interesting but risky experiment if Reddit really does tie something like this to user contributions. First it seems like a massive regulatory headache. From Reddit's perspective, are they going to send out 1099s to their users? Will they require them to have real names and addresses on file? From a user perspective, will I need to worry about my Reddit activity when filling out my tax returns. It…

I wonder how this would effect future users who behave like unidan did.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#53

Post by jmount » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 1:22 AM UTC

I'll be "that guy." My guess: Reddit releases a small fraction of a new crypto currency (likely a simple BitCoin clone) to its users. Reddit recipient interest in the currency then supports a large price for what Reddit retains and Reddit ends up net-profiting from the transaction.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#54

Post by Alex3917 » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 1:46 AM UTC

solfox wrote: post #37

slg wrote: post #5

This seems like an interesting but risky experiment if Reddit really does tie something like this to user contributions. First it seems like a massive regulatory headache. From Reddit's perspective, are they going to send out 1099s to their users? Will they require them to have real names and addresses on file? From a user perspective, will I need to worry about my Reddit activity when filling out my tax returns. It…

slg really hit the nail on the head here. the overjustification effect is well known and hints at how potentially dangerous this idea is to Reddit's future. I see the point Sam's trying to make by doing this, but does Reddit have a contribution problem? Hardly! If millions of people contribute to make a site awesome voluntarily, for no greater reward than the attention of their peers (and a desire to build a great co…

Exactly, all evidence suggests this could easily reduce user contributions by 50% or more. Why not instead do something that would actually increase intrinsic motivation? E.g. since IIRC people still retain copyright over the writing they publish, why not make it easier for people to turn that content into newspaper articles, blog posts, books, etc.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#55

Post by patcon » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 2:01 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #49

Karunamon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to ask, how notorious? Is this a documented effect (on Reddit, not in general) or just the noise that people on the site are repeating much like any other meme? Most accusations of "circle jerking" I hear there consist of shock and horror that certain communities seem to have certain beliefs/thoughts/ideas in common and that they were dared to be disagreed with. (I.e, you really should not be all that surprise…

I have to ask, how notorious? Is this a documented effect (on Reddit, not in general) or just the noise that people on the site are repeating much like any other meme? I think there have been some incidents which were dangerous and notorious. In particular, the misidentification of the Boston Bomber was one case that attracted mainstream attention[1]. [1] http://www.cnet.com/news/reddit-regrets-role-in-online-witch..…

Funny, since i find that to be the best example of communal remorse and reflection that i can dredge up for reddit. Compare reddit's turnaround to how quickly and thorough redactions take place in establishment in-groups of journalists or business leaders or politicians. The fact that an amorphous group of humans can come to have reddit's institutional memory and remorse is astounding imho. The boston bombing error is known and passed down like folklore from old members to new, keeping similar actions on check.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#56

Post by DennisP » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 2:44 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #54

solfox wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

slg really hit the nail on the head here. the overjustification effect is well known and hints at how potentially dangerous this idea is to Reddit's future. I see the point Sam's trying to make by doing this, but does Reddit have a contribution problem? Hardly! If millions of people contribute to make a site awesome voluntarily, for no greater reward than the attention of their peers (and a desire to build a great co…

Exactly, all evidence suggests this could easily reduce user contributions by 50% or more. Why not instead do something that would actually increase intrinsic motivation? E.g. since IIRC people still retain copyright over the writing they publish, why not make it easier for people to turn that content into newspaper articles, blog posts, books, etc.

I'd be happy if I could just download all my comments. Right now it's restricted to the most recent 1000. I've been complaining about this to the admins for years and they keep saying they're working on it.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#57

Post by Throwaway12830 » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 2:53 AM UTC

This seems incredibly strange. Personally, I don't see how it's going to add value to Reddit and help build the community. Mixing money into the site is going to complicate things, bring forward a lot of challenges, and it's going to be a large time sink.

I think Reddit has more important things to focus on, and I don't find this to be a good use of resources. Reddit is also slow to roll out changes, so if this has a negative impact, it'll take them a long time to pivot back on track.

Perhaps it's going to be a minor feature that the majority of users never know exists, and things will continue as they do now. If it's a major feature, I think it'll be a flop, and open up room for competition.

Edit: To expand a little more, what's the best case scenario they're hoping for here? They think the community is going to grow and more people will flock to the site because of this change? Reddit is anti-corporate, the community likes to feel small, even though it's one of the largest communities on the internet. When they associate money with the site, people will look at it as more of a business, and I think that'll drive more people away than it brings in.

Why doesn't Reddit just launch an image hosting platform? Why do they send all this traffic to imgur and gfycat, when they could roll out their own solution for the community? They can spin it off into a separate service to attract non-Redditors, and with all the incoming visitors from other sources, they can refer more people back to Reddit. To me, this seems like a no-brainer, since a large portion of their site revolves around images, and they're giving that traffic and monetization away to third parties at the moment.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#58

Post by vijayboyapati » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 2:57 AM UTC

Throwaway12830 wrote: post #57

This seems incredibly strange. Personally, I don't see how it's going to add value to Reddit and help build the community. Mixing money into the site is going to complicate things, bring forward a lot of challenges, and it's going to be a large time sink. I think Reddit has more important things to focus on, and I don't find this to be a good use of resources. Reddit is also slow to roll out changes, so if this has a…

Not to mention it sort of defeats one of the main value propositions of cryptocurrencies - their decentralized nature. If reddit created such a currency you would need to trust reddit to trust its value. And if it's backed by reddit shares, then it seems like a proxy for allowing public trading of the shares of a private company. I wonder what the SEC would think of that.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#59

Post by zaphar » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 2:57 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #5

This seems like an interesting but risky experiment if Reddit really does tie something like this to user contributions. First it seems like a massive regulatory headache. From Reddit's perspective, are they going to send out 1099s to their users? Will they require them to have real names and addresses on file? From a user perspective, will I need to worry about my Reddit activity when filling out my tax returns. It…

They don't really define what they mean by contribution. Maybe it's karma maybe it's not.

What if they mean to reward non karma based activities on the site? Moderators for instance.

Re: Reddit Plans Cryptocurrency to Give Back to Its Users After $50M Raise

#60

Post by philtar » Wed, Oct 01, 2014, 3:40 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #54

solfox wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

slg really hit the nail on the head here. the overjustification effect is well known and hints at how potentially dangerous this idea is to Reddit's future. I see the point Sam's trying to make by doing this, but does Reddit have a contribution problem? Hardly! If millions of people contribute to make a site awesome voluntarily, for no greater reward than the attention of their peers (and a desire to build a great co…

Exactly, all evidence suggests this could easily reduce user contributions by 50% or more. Why not instead do something that would actually increase intrinsic motivation? E.g. since IIRC people still retain copyright over the writing they publish, why not make it easier for people to turn that content into newspaper articles, blog posts, books, etc.

What evidence?