That's also how I see it. There is nothing exponential about it. The cost for someone using a sockpuppet to vote for a post is exactly the same as for anyone el

That's also how I see it. There is nothing exponential about it. The cost for someone using a sockpuppet to vote for a post is exactly the same as for anyone else. So either you have to make it really expensive to vote and that would make this a no-go or you end up with cheap advertisement that you can't even block easily. There is one trait to this system that is interesting: the cost to promote your content goes up with the rate of popularity of other posts. Kinda like in the real world where advertising on a popular page costs more than on a random blog. But because there is no limit as to how many people would try to advertise, the whole content would soon be pure ads.