Open Directory
Reddit on Bitcoin: upvotes were microtransactions paid to the person who submitted the link.
Open Directory asked what Reddit would look like if upvotes were money. Each upvote was a small Bitcoin payment to whoever submitted the link.
Its incentive model, the tip chain, paid everyone involved in creating the value: a tip on a reply also reached the reply it answered and the original post, all the way up the thread.
The themes were decentralized, uncensorable social media and open networks: anyone could publish, and no single company could capture the network effects. I came back to these ideas in later writing such as Disintermediating Network Effects for Fun and Profit. Building it showed me the same model could pay creators directly, which became Bit.sv. I talk about both in Building on Bitcoin #1.
