I'm glad they killed this project. I can't see how integrating a crypto-payment system into reddit would have worked out into anything other than a disaster.
First of all, if it became commonplace that reddit accounts might contain some sum of crypto-money, the bustling onslaught of salivating hackers would become so tremendous that the site would likely be crippled under the weight of user grievances and brute-force traffic. I'm sure mandatory MFA would be put in place to increase security, but it wouldn't change the fact that reddit would become a major target for hackers, and many people would lose their money, despite MFA.
Next, I think the incentives for shit and spam posts would rocket off the chart as scammers, beggars and cam-models would likely flood the site with crap so that they can extract tips from anyone willing to toss penny shavings in their direction. Karma is already a sufficient reward mechanism, adding money into the fray is totally unnecessary and would almost certainly lower the quality of discussion.
Finally, this may be a stretch, but I fear that integrating crypto-money into the site would open the door for pay-to-subscribe/pay-to-view/pay-to-comment/pay-to-vote subreddit mechanisms. I understand that reddit is a business, but I think that this would be objectively bad, and even worse if subreddit mods were able to get a cut of it.
In the end, I don't think reddit needs crypto, it doesn't make the site better in any conceivable way.
Quite a while ago i saw a thread "How to make Reddit worse". Besides adding avatars, signatures, etc, one of the most popular suggestion was to give karma a monetary value. I'm really glad it didn't happen.
Gold is thankfully not exchangeable for any goods or services though - it's really just another tier of karma.
With just karma/gold alone there's already a lot of people who spend a ridiculous amount of time farming it. Imagine if Imaginary Internet Points were redeemable for actual things.
First of all, if it became commonplace that reddit accounts might contain some sum of crypto-money, the bustling onslaught of salivating hackers would become so tremendous that the site would likely be crippled under the weight of user grievances and brute-force traffic. I'm sure mandatory MFA would be put in place to increase security, but it wouldn't change the fact that reddit would become a major target for hackers, and many people would lose their money, despite MFA.
Next, I think the incentives for shit and spam posts would rocket off the chart as scammers, beggars and cam-models would likely flood the site with crap so that they can extract tips from anyone willing to toss penny shavings in their direction. Karma is already a sufficient reward mechanism, adding money into the fray is totally unnecessary and would almost certainly lower the quality of discussion.
Finally, this may be a stretch, but I fear that integrating crypto-money into the site would open the door for pay-to-subscribe/pay-to-view/pay-to-comment/pay-to-vote subreddit mechanisms. I understand that reddit is a business, but I think that this would be objectively bad, and even worse if subreddit mods were able to get a cut of it.
In the end, I don't think reddit needs crypto, it doesn't make the site better in any conceivable way.