glockenspiel

It doesn't need to be someone spending money. You could earn quite a few Moons just by posting quality comments on CryptoCurrency. Moons were worth quite a lot (for being what they are) before reddit decided to end support. So, not out actual money but the potential. I am NOT a crypto advocate but did engage with the community out of interest and shitposting much like people here are doing. And I had about $600 of free Moons just sitting around. I didn't pay a thing.

But CryptoCurrency does have its WallstreetBets smoothbrains, so undoubtedly someone was longing them, buying them, etc.

1. In this case, Moons are on the Ethereum network and a number of options exist to move them off reddit. You can even swap them to other crypto if you fully want to divorce yourself of Moons (or the others).
2. Agreed, however these are for-profit companies. They will not share databases. They want to keep you in their sphere. And sharing a centralized database means that database can be knocked down much easier than a distributed network.

To your other points, this isn't about transfering your karma. Moons (et al) are not karma. That's why your karma remains the same even if you transfer your Moons out of your vault and into a wallet somewhere else (or just sell them off). I don't think many people want their reddit accounts linked to their other accounts or real identity anyway.

The entire point of these community coins was for them to be used for governance. CryptoCurrency is a good example: the mods are pretty hands off on the grander scheme of things. Anyone can propose a change or idea, and the community will vote on it. Can it be done without crypto? Definitely. Did Moons encourage people to stay engaged and govern once a month? YES. A resounding yes. It also incentivized engagement because you could earn rewards for commenting or posting. And the rules surrounding what is earned and how much was voted on by the community, and actively managed over time to address issues like low effort posts that are overrunning reddit elsewhere as people feverishly try to build up accounts before reddit's new "revenue sharing" model rolls out and makes things expontentially worse (but reddit has full control over, with no community input, because reddit inc is the sole governor now and people cannot transfer or convert anything without reddit's blessing and every changing rules.

Take Reddit gold as an example. Reddit controls everything including the rules. That's why all the people with tons of gold are pissed because they had its one use phased out with no recourse. But Moons have been able to be transferred to your own non-reddit wallet and converted into other things for a while now. Reddit has no control over it in the end, the community is likely to keep it alive themselves just without minting new coins, and this is likely why reddit is killing it but not NFTs.

Reddit does not want a community-controlled competitor to their new revenue sharing grift on their own site.

Reddit will not be forthcoming with that data regarding profitability. But they essentially gave the coins away to the communities to use as they saw fit. Reddit seemed to be angling to use it as an on-ramp for its NFT marketplace. The fact that the marketplace is sticking around, but not the community-based crypto, has me convinced that they are going to try this again but with an even more centralized token. Or maybe just with reddit gold/whatever they replace it with.

But this system did boost engagement on the subs. CryptoCurrency had to resort to heavy moderation because it boosted low effort engagement too much for people trying to make a quick buck. This is exactly what we see happening on reddit right now in the other subs as people try to get traction so they can make money off reddit's "revenue sharing" scheme they took directly from Elon.

Spez never was an original idea man. He implemented crypto and NFTs because everyone else was. He is on record saying that Elon is a great leader and he wants to emulate what he's doing with X. Hence, reddit copy/pasting X"s monetization strategy via tiered memberships with ads along with the potential to profit individually. I fully expect reddit to reverse course with an even more centralized token if that is what Elon does with X (or just use whichever token or coin that Spez happens to be heavily invested in, like Elon has floated several times with Doge).

The thing is: reddit can't really kill Moons. You can transfer them out of your Reddit vault and into your own wallet. There is an initiative on CryptoCurrency to get people to do that and just keep using Moons to fund and govern the community. Except, instead of reddit minting 1.2 million moons a month, the coins would instead become either static or deflationary. Rewards would be a fraction of what they are now but the Moons would theorhetically hold more value individually because no new Moons are being created.

I don't think Moons were ever a scam. They were a fun thing to encourage community engagement which included monthly governance votes to determine the policies and direction of the cryptocurrency subreddit. I can't think of any other community which was so self-governed right on down to which sponsors they would accept, what type of advertisements (if any) would be allowed, what types of posts, and even the rules. The mods are not the typical overbearing power trippers in general. Did Moons create that environment? I don't know. But it definitely incentivized people to stay engaged and vote. And it incentivized the mods to follow through.

This is literally the reason Apple changes the bubble color. iMessage is encrypted by default and uses normal data instead of MMS. That’s the indicator.

This entire spiel about bubble color envy is ridiculous. Features are the separation. The media will whip things up with their sample size of a handful of cherry picked anecdotes. But almost every teen has an iPhone and uses iMessage in the USA. Apple has over 80% of that market.

What Google wants is for Apple to implement Google’s proprietary RCS implementation, not RCS proper. Because RCS proper lacks a lot of features that people take for granted with iMessage. That is presumably one reason Google forked it and requires it to run through their proprietary middleware.

Edit: Don’t get me wrong. I would love for an open standard to overtake the proprietary bits from both Apple and Google. But Google is disingenuous here. They are complaining because, despite their efforts, they can’t crack the market. Teens aren’t bitting for Android. iMessage has network effect going on, so Google is trying to crack that open since they can’t get a compelling overall product and ecosystem for a valuable demographic.

I’d rather there be open standards. But that means Google RCS has to change as well.

I’m so happy to see someone else is finally talking about this. RCS, as implemented by Google, is distinct from the actual open RCS standard. Google added a proprietary middle layer which is how they get features working which RCS doesn’t support.

And that proprietary middle layer (Jibe being part of it) is why there aren’t a million third party RCS clients out there. Google must give API access. They are gatekeepers. And they only share keys with strategic partners (Samsung being one of them, telcos with their own app like Verizon used to have being another).

But in the end Google did what Google does best: fragmented a product. And now Google holds the leash for RCS proper. I bet Apple isn’t too keen to route all customer data through Google servers even when encrypted. Because it’s another piece that Apple doesn’t control.

I’m going to guess they wouldn’t kill the men and then rape, murder, and dismember the women and children on video to post it in celebration.

But maybe I’m wrong. With reductionism, anything is justifiable.

Citi Bank took my parents’ home and thus any inheritance the family had coming. So one can theoretically go murder those executives’ children as compensation and be morally right, yes? Or is putting in more identifiable terms highlighting how insane that logic actually is?

Native Americans can invade American preschools and cut the throats of all the toddlers similar to what Hamas has uploaded to the internet with Israeli kids, yes?

Don’t you see the slippery slope and immoral position you hold here?

Bad people love to wear the mantle of victim because it justifies all the evil shit they do.

Exactly. I’m a far-leftist, and I’m as disgusted with leftist hot takes the same way I was when poor old defenseless Russia invaded Ukraine and started murdering their children.

I’ve blocked and purged so many leftist creators in 24 hours it is unreal. Spreading legit anti-Semitic (really anti-Jew) conspiracy theories (“curious how nobody stopped it” and the like). Reframing these terrorists as freedom fighters like you said. Blaming this on the U.S. somehow (because we made Iran do this via Hamas as proxy; but Iran has clean hands don’t worry they are just another oppressed peoples).

Far too many leftists, like their right wing nut counterparts, are contrarians at heart. This is what happens when political ideology becomes a personality trait; it becomes akin to a religion.

So thoroughly disgusted by it all. Bad enough what’s happening over there in Israel and Palestine right now; bad enough with all the innocent lives being lost; but then to justify industrial grade rape and murder of men, women, and children? And cheer Palestinians on as they record, edit, and upload their barbarity?

I’d like to believe that a lot of it are disinformation ops, but the sad reality is probably that a fair number of people have nothing left to live for because their lives are shit so the world burning down for others isn’t such a big deal for them.

Ha, I completely didn't pick up how my post could be read that way. And you're right! I meant more about people being creepy and not letting a dad and daughter go unbothered for Halloween.

People really need to stop this celebrity obsession. He's a dad trick or treating with his daughter a few years ago. It is beyond ridiculous that people not only tolerate this, but cheer it on.

The conservative nightmare: people having the freedom to live their lives without hurting others.