The new announcement on noise.cash made a lot of noise. In short, the tips will be cut. So where is it coming from and where is it going.
Gearing up and seeing the spam and abuse
Well, it isn’t a big secret that where there is free money online there is abuse. So read.cash and noise.cash got victim of tons of abuse and spam. From multiple accounts to just plain spam, people bleed the system every second. Those platforms also run from funds that came from donations from high-profile investors and believers of BCH. But it is NOT an infinite supply. It will either dry up, or this way of promoting BCH will stop for other means of marketing. So something has to be done. This is where the decision to cut free tips for all came from. And for this, I do agree very much as the quality is very very low and will drive away most of the serious writers and users if it keeps going on. I myself, came close to leave read.cash because of it but things got done to prevent a lot of it. I remember that some of my first posts on there were about spam and how it is bad for the platform. You can still see it there:
Doing the dive with the content filtering for tips
This prompt me to also talk about content filtering. It was also written that they would not be sponsoring anymore post that leads or are about other platforms or other cryptos. I understand the idea, but to me, this is not a good one. It might lead to having only one topic worthy and we will only see things about BCH. You know, it is like trying to sell corn to a corn farmer. This is in a way what is happening on other platforms where all the successful writers just write about that one platform and that one token. If you are not worshipping it or part of the clique, well you feel left behind and just give up.
Another thing about the filter is that I’ve heard about other awesome projects from read.cash and noise.cash. Some lead me to make much more money than BCH will ever give to me and that is a HUGE incentive to come back on the platform and read looking for the next big thing. If those posts start disappearing because they will not be paid, what incentive there will be to write there and go read there.
To be honest BCH, noise.cash, and read.cash is not something really special. There are many others that do the same thing. But they can’t do what many other cryptos projects allows. What is WAX, ENJIN, or even ETH for NFTs and games, Uniswap, CAKE, CUB for yield farming, LBRY, DTube or Odyssey for videos, HIVE for its social platform with curators, or even their games like Splinterlands? In this sense, there is no competition directly with BCH as BCH is doing none of this.
BCH doesn’t have privacy in its core like Monero, PIVX, or other privacy-oriented cryptos. Even for transactions, I do not use BCH as some others are faster and cheaper to use. I promote BCH to friends and family to transact with me but for the more tech-savvy friends I have, we use others. This is although a very different story and me being cheap and impatient with transactions...
The debriefing of the dive with some possible solutions
There are many things that can be one to up the game and promote better content. Here is some things I think could work instead of just penalizing content that isn’t about BCH.
Giveaways and activities in real-time
Giveaway FROM the platform. They are just giving BCH anyway, why not make it into a game where people do have to make efforts. Make a discord server where people can get rewarded for upvoting articles about BCH on free public platforms like Twitter or FB. This could raise awareness. Energi NRG has something great going on this way.
Accrued verification system
Add layers of verification by making it mandatory to link other social networks. If people complain about privacy, they could still post but earn nothing. Allocation a part of the funds to manually analyze signups and new accounts. The money is there anyway and being given away anyway. Accounts already created could also have to resubmit for those verifications.
Curation by the users
By setting a curator system akin to HIVE and Steem where better content gets more. This could also lead people to hold or “stake” BCH which is a good indication of accounts instead of just cashing out for fiat all the time. The more staked, the better the tip ratio and more voting power to distribute.
Options that could be paid
Posting about other topics or platforms could be made into paid one where an author can pay a small fee back to be able to post and receive tips for quality content. There could also be options to add a banner photo, some special characters, and other perks to an account name and/or homepage for a fee. This could invite people to have only one account and to stand out more. This would put some money back into the system and possibly make the platform less bare.
Paid accounts
In some other chains and platforms, opening an account required paying something. This avoids many multiple account issues and lowers the number of spammers and bots. It could be another to enable tips for only genuine accounts.
I am sure there are another 1000 ways of helping prevent spam and abuse at the same time as promoting BCH to the masses. I just think there is a balance to be found.
After the dive
All this is my honest opinion. I like how all this came to be and still think it is quite unique. I am still impressed at the investors and funders like Marc De Mesel or people who voice it like George Donnelly or Roger Ver. I still like the community and people I’ve come to know on read.cash and noise.cash. I sure do not wish this goes away by lack of funds, interest, or becoming too niche from wrong and hasty decisions.
Now sadly, I might quit read.cash because of that new system from a few months ago. It seems to have flagged my account for spam or something like that. I don’t get any tips anymore from the random rewarder and I get more rewards writing on other platforms even if it is about BCH. Which is I think the reason for this platform in the first place. I will try a little more but there isn’t much exposure in it anymore. Spammers are mostly gone and other platforms are becoming much more popular. So there aren’t many new users and the ones I like also publish on other platforms.