Cent.Co: Upvote with Ethereum

https://beta.cent.co/

by base698 • 9 years ago

45 24 9 years ago

beta.cent.co

chejazi3• 9 years ago

Hey! I'm one of the cofounders of Cent. That link goes to the beta app which lets you earn Ether (the currency powering Ethereum) by responding to questions. You can also ask a question, provided you put a bounty on it.

Happy for any questions or feedback - we just launched Tuesday!

thrill• 9 years ago

Recommend you identify in some way other than showing the age of the question which ones are past the answer bounty stage. Also, I think the questioner should set the lifespan, and it should be related to the amount of bounty offered - i.e. higher bounty allows a longer lifespan, (hopefully) soliciting a better reasoned response.

AdamSC1• 9 years ago

Yeah, looking at the stackoverflow model would be good.

It's also worth noting that the anonymous nature of this will probably drive down engagement. Look at Quora, people use it solely to build their personal brand.

Right now people would answer on cent solely for the money.

Let them do both so you can appeal to a broader market.

hathym• 9 years ago

Why pay when quora is free?

lorenzfx• 9 years ago

Why answer on quora if you can get paid on cent? (assuming it ever gets any traction)

newsbinator• 9 years ago

The most valuable answers I've seen on Quora were typically written by people who don't need (and probably wouldn't notice) small tipped amounts.

maxbrody3• 9 years ago

Exactly. We see this as a new type of income source for many people. You provide cognitive value to the network and the network rewards you financially.

quickthrower2• 9 years ago

Because the psychology of doing something for free vs. doing something for 10% of your usual hourly rate.

Plus answering on popular sites for making connections, building personal brand and even SEO.

chejazi3• 9 years ago

We think there is a market for information somewhere in between free, open sites like Quora/StackOverflow, and expensive, closed sites like Experts Exchange.

Our hypothesis is that by adding bounties to the equation, the quality + speed of the answers you receive will increase due to competition for the bounty.

ilikerashers• 9 years ago

I often find Quora answers to be thinly veiled marketing by "growth hackers". They are getting paid indirectly and it lowers answer standards.

unkown-unknowns• 9 years ago

Our hypothesis is that by adding bounties to the equation, the quality + speed of the answers you receive will increase due to competition for the bounty.

Well, either that or maybe the opposite. When there's a financial incentive people will respond to as many questions as possible just out of hope that they'll be awarded for any of the answers. If that happens then that will kill the quality of the answers. Good answers take time to research or require knowledge that only a minority of people have for any specific question. Spewing out garbage answers takes no time and no skill so it's more likely that more people will be doing that.

MichaelGG2• 9 years ago

But How likely is it that the Bounty is going to be remotely near what a subject matter expert is worth? If I'm going to spend my time providing an in-depth answer for someone is the fact that I'll get two bucks really going to motivate me? Once you introduce money you're putting a definite value on someone's time and knowledge and it just seems like the amounts won't be enough to make that a positive experience.

But if there was a way to reach experts and offer enough serious compensation in an easy to do way, it could take off. There's been plenty of times where I'd be willing to toss fifty or a hundred bucks to get a quick answer, something that only take a couple minutes from someone familiar with the subject.

It might help if you find a way to piggyback off of something like stack overflow. I wish you success.

shp0ngle• 9 years ago

I think failures of BitcoinTip and flattr and later relative failure of Steem.it shows that there is really no market for micropayments for content.

But what do I do know, maybe ethereum is different.

convery• 9 years ago

Isn't the main issue converting 'analog' money into digital? I think Twitch was pretty successful with their tipping system..

repomies691• 9 years ago

I think it has been quite obvious for very long time that in general there is no market for micropayments/microtransactions. I don't see why on earth someone would be willing to make small transactions all the time. Normal people prefer doing less transactions than more. That's why subscription services are popular.

maxbrody3• 9 years ago

CEO here. It's not that micro-transactions will replace macro-transactions, but that micro-transactions provide a new type of behavior for people to choose from. Rather than give a value that is network-specific (like a "like"), you give and receive currencies that have actual value outside of the network you are in.

chejazi3• 9 years ago

We think altruism isn't a good model -- people aren't willing to pay for things which have already been delivered (e.g. content). This is why we're starting with bounties.

The title of this submission is a little misleading - when you upvote an answer on Cent, you're effectively allocating a portion of the bounty to that answer.

re: Ethereum. We definitely think there is huge potential for decentralized apps (dapps) and that Ethereum is at the forefront of making them happen. One HUGE barrier to adoption is that, aside from maybe having a gpu that can mine a tiny bit, your only gateway to getting Ether is by buying it, e.g. through Coinbase. Without Ether, you can't use any of the dapps, and if it's just a bunch of speculators holding Ether, the dapps may never gain traction. Fundamentally, we believe that currencies are meant to be earned, and we want to be a mechanism for people new to the decentralized world to get involved by earning them.

Kiro• 9 years ago

I wouldn't call Steemit a failure.

Torai• 9 years ago

I think donations will be massively used when the necessary conditions are met:

- One platform/standard to donate to or receive for any content on the internet.

- Ease of use, secure online wallet.

- Very low transaction fees, accepting donations from say 10 cents.

Flattr is subscription oriented and most people don't like having a recurrent expense. Steem.it, like Cent.co are limited to content on their site, and there is much better content in the internet that most people would donate first.

So the question is how to make this platform/standard and get youtube, twitter, facebook, quora... adopt it. Some rely heavily on advertising and I don't think they are interested to change that business model yet.

Semaphor• 9 years ago

- Very low transaction fees, accepting donations from say 10 cents.

That is a feature of the Iota coin, transaction fees are zero. Of course there are some other problems, but in general, it would be perfect for such micropayments.

maxbrody3• 9 years ago

Hey guys - cofounder/CEO here. Happy to answer any and all questions about the service. I'm seeing a lot of talk of microtransactions, but really microtransactions are not the core of the model. The core is the giving and receiving of actual value as opposed to imaginary value that other networks provide. That said, I do generally believe in the concept of microtransactions and believe we will see more and better products that utilize them now that things like Ethereum are maturing.

ptenk• 9 years ago

I think it's cool, despite Hacker News' general bearish outlook on cryptocurrencies. +1 for not issuing your own tokens via ICO and using ETH instead.

Cent.Co: Upvote with Ethereum

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