Background and Challenges
For the past decade, the crypto industry's attempts at content incentive mechanisms have yielded limited results. Vitalik Buterin points out that the issue isn't a lack of content, but rather a lack of effective curation and discovery systems. Especially in the AI era, where content can be generated at low cost, the industry needs to shift its focus from "producing more content" to "identifying high-quality content."
Lessons from Substack's Success
Vitalik considers Substack one of the most successful platforms for creator incentives. Its strength lies in the platform's active curation and support for quality creators, rather than relying solely on algorithmic or token-based incentives. This human-driven discovery mechanism effectively elevates the overall quality of content.
Limitations of Token Mechanisms
Many existing creator token projects suffer from structural flaws. Rankings are often dominated by individuals with high social influence rather than those producing high-quality content. This mechanism leads to misallocation of resources, limiting opportunities for truly deserving creators to receive support.
Innovative Design of Token-Free DAOs
Vitalik proposes the creation of token-free creator DAOs. These DAOs would use member voting to identify top-tier creators and maintain strict content focus and membership control to build a strong brand and commercial bargaining power.
The Supporting Role of Tokens
Although the DAO itself does not issue tokens, individual creators can still issue their own. Once a creator joins the DAO, their tokens can be repurchased and burned using DAO revenue, transforming speculators into "quality creator predictors" and reducing pure speculative behavior.
Future Governance Directions
Vitalik suggests that future governance models may combine prediction markets with multi-layered governance structures to enhance resistance to manipulation and align objectives more effectively, opening new pathways for content incentive systems.