Mark Fishman

Tailoring language to avoid scrutiny predates the Internet. Many religions have avoided uttering the devil’s name lest they summon him, while people living in repressive regimes developed code words to discuss taboo topics.

- gives ownership to users, incentivizes them to stay and invest moreCons of “social tokens”- puts pressure on creators to continue delivering value for token holders (akin to an “early IPO”)

Early Internet users used alternate spelling or “leetspeak” to bypass word filters in chat rooms, image boards, online games and forums. But algorithmic content moderation systems are more pervasive on the modern Internet, and often end up silencing marginalized communities and important discussions.

The only way everyone keeps making money is if other people keep putting more money into the system, which either requires more people or deeper pockets from existing people.This is the metagame of STEPN: how long can you milk the magic money machine before it all comes crashing down? And can they fix their doom loop before it gets triggered?

Because you can see, even more clearly with the distance, the theory of attention that underpinned the iPhone: that with these calm and capable devices in our pockets, we would ourselves become calmer and more capable. That we would master what cognitive scientists call executive functioning — the ability to mentally plan, organize our working... See more

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators both exist and need to be carefully balanced. There is a long tradition of open-source development, and adding financial rewards can derail a project. (See: there is yet to be a successful "token-powered Wikipedia")