I don't see why tasks couldn't be devided up and given a value and people get paid for completing it. Some would be easier, and some would be harder and worth more. I might not be a veteran developer, but from what I see this could work.
It would not work because the scenario you describe would amount to seeing "all your productivity evaporate into a never-ending haggle over tasks." Also you presume that you can be good at estimation and assigning "value," but everyone actually sucks at that. That's not to say that no one can accurately estimate anything, it means everyone sucks at estimating when it really matters. Your idea also kneecaps your ability to delegate, and motivates pay-later kinds of corner cutting.
And it would be worth trying IMO, because the potential for productivity improvement is insanely high. Dumber things have been tried (codling tech workers).
Are you talking about your time selling cars? Have you actually seen a software engineering organization work by paying commission/piece-rate for the completion of tasks?
> And it would be worth trying IMO, because the potential for productivity improvement is insanely high. Dumber things have been tried (codling tech workers).
It's not worth trying, I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't been tried many times before. It's a bad idea that's easy to think of, and appeals to certain kinds of prejudices and misunderstandings. I've spend enough time talking about it.
By the way, have you ever read the classic software engineering book PeopleWare? If you haven't, you should.