Probably Facebook introduced “liking a story” and “following a user”. This concept is now widely used and implemented in Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, YouTube, Steemit and you name it. The system rewards people that are popular and publish useful content. It is so powerful, that publishers with a certain amount of followers can live from their publications. Not from those followers making contributions, but from advertisers that pay for product appraisals or show an ad. Also in cryptocurrencies, bounties are paid to people who make publications for ICO’s, the reward increase with the amount of followers!
This system encourages people to be active, creative and it works extremely well. I personally like Colin Furze on YouTube, this guy can live from ridiculous inventions, it’s awesome! And it’s real character, you can see that he really does this for fun. For example, have a look at the worlds fastest bumper car:
But the question remains - is the concept of rewards for followers likes fair? Are people that look nice and make nice stories to be rewarded for that? Or vice versa, is it fair that people that don’t look so nice, or made an “incorrect publication” have a disadvantage?
If you’d like to see consequences of that system, than have a look at Nosedive, an episode of Black Mirror, that can be seen on Netflix and here’s an intro.
It is a brilliant display of the pressure it creates!