That's the thing. If this service is implemented properly, you want users to game the system for profit. It'd have to be so airtight that the only way to "game"

That's the thing. If this service is implemented properly, you want users to game the system for profit. It'd have to be so airtight that the only way to "game" the system would be to go out and try to think of something intelligent to contribute. Another commenter discussed the possibility of astroturfing -- The astroturfing would have to be so well concealed that it'd be content users would actually like. So, it's still corporate-supported advertising, but it's smart corporate-supported advertising. Which is still awesome. Reminds me of this : https://xkcd.com/810/ https://xkcd.com/810/. What you said about a system of experts and trained users determining whether your comment is worth exposing to the public ... eh. It sounds like it'd take a shit-ton of time and debating, especially as the service expands to handle a lot of content. Also, isn't that just modern journalism? As a journalist, you apply to write an article for, or get a job at writing articles for, a well-established high-quality media company like the NY times or the New Yorker. A system of trained experts review your application and approve or deny it accordingly. Then you write articles and they get shown to the public after you've been approved. I'm not saying it's a bad process, I'm saying it already exists. The problem is, it's slow and it takes a shit ton of time to determine who's a great writer and who gets limited participation and who doesn't. And when you allow the process to get faster, you have to give up the expert-authority, and well, you get something like Reddit. This service would have to find a way to keep submissions and distribution extremely fast, like Reddit, but also keep the quality of discourse high, like NY Times. The proposed solution is : money. People who submit stupid cat pictures to Reddit aren't dumb themselves, they've just been exposed to a forum for discourse that allows dumb content. Meaning, if you asked them : "Do you really think that cat picture is going to allow for quality discourse?", they'd definitely say "No." So I'm willing to trust ilovekatpictures1998 on his judgment of discourse, if not his ability to create such discourse. So if we can trust the users to have good judgment, all we have to do is create a system that forces them to use their judgment, which Reddit doesn't do. And telling them to put their money where their mouth is by making them pay is the best way to force them to use their judgment. The only reason it wouldn't get as big as Reddit is, people don't want to put their money where their mouth is. Well, most people. But then again, there are a lot of niches ...