What I am suggesting aren't micropayments, I just explained them like they are, and that can and probably should be removed (this idea is still baking). That is, you give Hubski $10. We have the $10. No one else gets any portion of the $10. But now, in addition to the good feeling it gave you, you now have 1000 hubs. When you circledot something, you give 2 hubs to the author, and 2 hubs go towards your reward stream. When the author circledots something 1 hub goes to the author of the content they dug, and 1 hub goes towards their reward stream. No micropayment was ever made. Hubski spent the $10 on a pizza long before all the hubs rolled in. This is actually a straight donation mechanism, plus the value add, plus the bequething aspect of the experiment.Especially since you haven't learned your lesson. Micropayments are stupid and will kill your site. I don't want to see the intrinsic value of a post of mine, particularly when it comes down to "you just spent 20 minutes typing out 2 hours worth of reflections and it's worth less than a tenth of a cent." The very mechanics of your idea are telling me to fuck off and do something better with my time.
You donated to the site, and that supports us. Don't mistake me, these are just my thoughts as of this morning. This needs to bounce around. I simply see it as taking the two positives from the experiment that I see: 1) people feel more selective about their sharing, and 2) good content creators without cash can be a part of the donation reward mechanism; and it removes the bad that comes along with spreading bits of cash about.
That's just it, though - Money elicits powerful emotions as a motivator. As a point of commerce people recognize that some things aren't free. This is why people generally gripe about but put up with ads - they recognize that websites have to make money somehow but that's just the cost of doing business. When you tie the money to their behavior on the site, their behavior becomes transactional in nature, not conversational. You can't afford me on a transactional basis. You can't afford anyone. You recognize this by allowing me to buy "boops" or whatever heinous word we're using but not requiring them, which just shows your passive-aggressive desire to make them matter but recognizes your fear in forcing them to matter.