There are very few tor nodes currently because there societal incentive is very low. If you can actually start making money off it, many more people will start doing it. It's a concept so basic I'm wondering how one can miss it.
And the paper you linked to not applicable to the situation at all.
In fact, it would probably be better if the whole idea of Tor was further removed from prosocial values. This will help disassociate the idea that contributing to and using Tor is for people who have something to hide, and turn it into an economic decision.
At the very least, if the economics of using Tor were closer to neutral. Right now it costs money to run a Tor relay, would be nice if it was self-funded.
I would like to see an attempt to quantify the two effects, but I would venture to say that switching from an altruistic motivation to a financial motivation will increase the bandwidth available by orders of magnitude. For example, compare private trackers with public trackers.
That may be true if the economic incentives available are sufficiently strong, but that is not a given.
It would also be great if people provided internet content out of altruism and didn't want any compensation for it, but it doesn't work that way. A lot of websites can only survive by putting up web-ads, even if the compensation is pretty low.
If you start paying people tiny amounts of money to run a Tor relay, they will calculate that it's not worth it and they will stop doing it.
This isn't a problem at all, they have actually found another source of revenue for their company with a service their customers value and are willing to pay for.
Of all places where I would expect someone to be oblivious to this I find the fact that it's on a site focused on entrepreneurship and nurturing start ups to become profitable hilariously ironic.
They have literally blundered their way into a source of revenue, fail to see it as an opportunity and are resentful of it.
If the fee wasn't supposed to be a price then they shouldn't have made it a price. If they really hate money as much as it sounds they could instead give tardy parents 3 strikes before banning them from the daycare altogether.
I think you're missing the point of the example, though. It's not "OMG there is no solution for this daycare" - there is, as you say, an obvious economic solution. It's that it is interesting (and relevant) that the different kinds of incentive don't stack, which is contrary to the naive assumption. Therefore, if the proposed mechanism cannot come up with sufficient money, it might actually make the situation worse - this may not be a "every little bit helps" situation.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. If we replace the altruistic motivation with a monetary one, and we don't have enough money to incentivize people, they will just stop. They won't take the altruistic motivation plus the monetary one.
It's plain to see that altruism isn't enough to keep enough tor nodes going. I've never even considered running one until now because of the real costs and risk it incurs upon me. Now I'm actually considering it because it might be worth it. This is a good thing and there are more people willing do to something for money than people willing to do something out of the kindness of their heart to people they will never meet or interact with in any way.
"As it stands I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of nodes were operated by various national intelligence agencies simply because they have vastly more incentive to do so than anyone else. Potentially being able to profit from this changes things dramatically and gives people who wouldn't consider themselves stakeholders actual reason to 'sell' their bandwidth to the tor network."
It's possible that most of the nodes aren't run for altruistic reasons at all. And are in fact run to datamine the network to discover the identity of people using it.
Paying people won't affect the people who are doing it for altruistic reasons alone, their price is already met. It's just an added bonus for them. But it will have the affect of bringing in additional people who wouldn't have considered it before. The only problem with the daycare's solution is the fact they didn't charge enough to offset the "cost" of feeling bad about being late. To the customers it was a worthy exchange.
Similarly, the tor coin needs to have a value that will offset the 'cost' of feeling bad about not contributing to the network which I know is extremely low.
In the example, the parents picking up their kids on time beforehand were doing so for altruistic reasons alone. When the choice became framed economically, parents started picking up their kids on time less often.
You say they need to raise the fine, but the point here is that it's not economically feasible to raise the reward for running a Tor node indefinitely. The max amount paided out for running a node may be less of an incentive than the existing prosocial incentive to do so.
Parking fines work because people respond more strongly to the monetary incentive than to stern looks. Paying doctors high wages works because monetary incentives work better than handshakes from patients. You don't get a paper published for that, because it's obvious.
I don't believe this is true. I know numerous studies have shown that, for example, software developers enjoy their work less and feel less in control of it the more they are paid to work on it.
This case does not necessarily apply to Tor nodes, since one does not really do any persistent "work" when running one. But the concept of monetary incentive is definitely not nearly as shallow as you make it out to be.
Demoralization can happen when the social situation emphasizes pay as the only reward. The problem isn't that the pay is not an incentive, but the lack of social rewards acts as a disincentive.
If I tell you that I love the quality of the lemonade you are making for customers and I want to give you a raise so you will be happy to work longer hours making such great lemonade you will feel very appreciated and motivated.
If in the exact same situation I tell you that we need more lemonade and I know you don't want to work more but I am going to give you money so you need to do it, you are going to feel very differently. Its not that the money wouldn't have been an incentive, its that it is presented as if that is all you care about, which means your personal character and work ethic are being ignored. Very demoralizing.
The market rate in my area is $15 for each 10 minute increment, with contract termination after a certain number of incidents.
As it stands I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of nodes were operated by various national intelligence agencies simply because they have vastly more incentive to do so than anyone else.
Potentially being able to profit from this changes things dramatically and gives people who wouldn't consider themselves stakeholders actual reason to 'sell' their bandwidth to the tor network.