Today I came up with a new term after a discussion about my book chapter draft “Voluntary Basic Incomes in a Reputation Economy” (see Voluntary Basic Incomes in a Reputation Economy). In a sentence I mentioned a “reputation economy with reputation incomes”. This made me want to contract that to “Reputation Income Economy” as term for the kind of reputation economy I have in mind and which I struggled to define properly, so far.
There is a distinction between economies in which reputation plays a big role and economies in which actual reputation incomes exist. Reputation incomes translate reputation into monetary incomes directly! That changes the dynamics of the economy – possibly dramatically.
In a reputation income economy, people can get paid for creating stuff and giving it away for free! How does that work? First they get reputation for giving away their stuff for free, and then they get an income that is created by their (formal) reputation. Thus, a reputation income economy makes artificial scarcity obsolete (in the best case), so everyone can enjoy an abundance of digital goods and potentially even non-digital goods and services!
Note that this is not easily possible in a “regular” reputation economy, because there is no mechanism that translates reputation into wealth or income. People could get donations for giving away stuff for free, but getting donations is harder than getting reputation. A reputation income economy is basically a donation economy on steroids!
What do you think about the term “reputation income economy”? Is it a good one? Is it really descriptive? Is it too descriptive? Does it sound positive?