Incentives in Networking

[coderman]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Rayservers <rayservers at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> I said price and I also said tokens on another node. It could be peanuts or oil
> or music or whatever - perhaps donuts. Exchange value for value. At the end of
> that chain... I go buy a donut.
>
> Sure, you can trade points, hashcash, torrentpoints... how do I, who run an ISP,
> go buy a donut? tit-for-that. lol.

my apologies for focusing solely on the price/money angle. there is a
good post about incentives on the Tor blog that covers similar ideas
and discusses the complexities and pit falls associated:
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/two-incentive-designs-tor

using loom for settlement is probably too much overhead for Tor but is
aiming closer to what is needed.

my issue with money payment in particular is described in this paragraph:
"On top of that are the social implications of adding money into the
system. Nick keeps reminding me of sociological studies saying that
rewarding volunteers with t-shirts makes them feel good about their
contribution, whereas rewarding them with a small amount of cash makes
them subconsciously start to value their contribution based on the
cash you give them. So they're more likely to stop volunteering, as
they don't feel their effort is properly appreciated. More details
here[0], here[1], and here[2]. It's hard to say how right this
research is, but it seems a rough set of variables to add in if we can
avoid it."

1. http://www.congo-education.net/wealth-of-networks/ch-04.htm
2. http://fiveandone.wikispaces.com/file/view/Why+Incentive+Plans+Cannot+Work.pdf
3. http://www.google.com/search?q=Effects+of+externally+mediated+rewards+on+intrinsic+motivation

sorry for the rash response. i too am anxious for the day when robust
incentives in Tor provide a much larger, much more capable network!

best regards,