Can you imagine being paid for your work in digital jewels and rubies? It’s not there yet, but were getting closer and closer to being a modern day Tennessee Ernie Ford, paid in scrip and buying everything at the company store.
Yep.
…“something, something, scammers get paid in gift cards.”
Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.
I think this is probably more a copy of various East Asian social media services than anything Reddit-like. Pretty sure TikTok and a bunch of Chinese video streaming services already do this. I think the whole Money -> Gifts -> Rubies -> Money chain is intended to dance around money laundering legislation. The same way that Pachinko machines aren’t technically considered gambling in Japan.
I feel like this headline and article are missing the mark. This is clearly aping off of TikTok Live’s Gifts system, which works in basically the exact same way. It’s crazy to me that the article doesn’t mention them at all.
Just like YouTube started supercharging Shorts after TikTok took off, they’re chasing that same train again.
