People take for granted the services their social media sites provide. They take for granted that they can share photos with family and connect with old friends online for free. But what if a social media platform made users work to stay a member of the community?
In real life, if you want to be a member of a community you need to work. You need to do your part for the community, or else the community has no use for you. They’ll kick you out. What if online communities did the same? Contribute to the community or get kicked out.
There are many ways a user can help an online community. Under the current paradigm, users contribute passively by viewing advertisements, uploading content to share, and sometimes paying a membership fee. The contribution model I have in mind is a bit more active. As a member of the community, you are assigned tasks. The social media site assigns the duties depending on demand for the job to get done. Responsibilities might include categorizing content, moderating comments, moderating pictures, vetting new users, and others. Doing more tasks gets you points in the system. Failure to perform your assigned duties gets you kicked out of the community. No lazy freeloaders allowed.
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