The B|A|S Model for Equitable Monetary Distribution in Autonomous Organizations
This model is meant for Interoperable UX Modules that will exist in Web 4. The idea of Interoperable UX Modules is that not simply people’s data will be owned by them, but they will be housed within small components pages that people can add or subtract to different web pages.
Modules are content — pictures, writing, video, with meta data, descriptions, and simple actions that you can do towards this content — -Like, Save, Favorite, Download, Respond, etc.
Modules are plugged into larger Blocks and platform structures. This is the basis of the concept of the Modnet, an interoperable, democratically built web.
Some examples of Platform Structures include:
The Modnet is a response to the current problems with Distributed Autonomous Organizations, or DAOs. DAOs still demand a lot of user expertise with code to start at all, and they also distribute equity through the creation of code responsible for creating contracts that build the organization. Again, this makes it so only developers who can write code are able to pay themselves on these networks. On the Modnet, there is no additional contracts that need to be created to build anything. Everything is already pre-created and the community simply needs to add or delete existing modules and blocks. While the DAO still has people creating networks from scratch, the Modnet is more like people assembling Lego sets. However, a lot of the principles outlined here can be used to create more equitable DAOs.
Now that you have a basic idea of what the Modnet is, the BAS model was created to ensure as communities assemble together, even distributed communities, that the people who host the platform and contribute to it are rewarded and that each component has checks and balances to ensure quality components are being added and quality actions are taken on the Modnet. The first idea is that of Structure.
Structure
In the standard BAS model, 1/3 of the equity, and in turn the monetary flow in the company is generated by the structure of the organization. In a two-tiered organization where there is only a hosted platform structure and then a place where people can insert their own modules, equity is divided into two Levels, L1 and L2. In an equitable distribution, the hosted platform gets 50% of the equity, while the modules within the second level combined get 50%, and then equity is divided by the number of modules at this level.
There are networks that can be Up-Adjusted, which means the L1 modules has greater than 50% of the equity, or Down-Adjusted Structures where people who own L2 modules have a greater percentage of the equity.
An Up-Adjusted equity division might be used for platforms that are complex to build and the content added to it is fairly simple.
A Down-Adjusted equity division might be used to encourage people to go to your platform since individual content contributors will get a larger slice of the pie.
Below is another example of Equitable, Up-Adjusted, and Down-Adjusted Equity splits in more complex Three-Tiered Networks.
Action
To encourage and sustain user action on a network, 1/3 of the money flow is generated by user action.
More actions taken on the network means more money for the person. This incentivizes user participation.
Common actions might include Adding a Content Module, Writing a Response to another User’s Content, etc. All actions need to come with weights and caps. For example, Writing a Response to a person’s content module is not very hard, so would get a weight of .5. Adding a content module is more work, so would get a weight of 1.5. “Liking” a person’s content can be -.1, thereby transferring .5 of credit to content the user likes. This also incentivizes people to add good content.
All of the users’ actions would be added up for the day and divided by the total number of actions on the network to get the person’s daily equity amount/money they can draw out of the platform. I call this the “Daily Draw”.
The Action component of the network’s equity incentivizes user participation on a network but also makes it so people can abuse this for financial gain. This is why each Action needs a cap — -the amount of times a user can do an action per day. Perhaps a person can only upload one module a day, or only write 10 responses. At the outset of the network design, the total point count a user can do will need to be delineated by the host L1 platform structure.
Balance
Balance is the final 1/3 of the BAS model. Since users are incentivized to add components to the network and take action to get money, Balance is needed to ensure quality on the network. This 1/3 of equity, or “Monetary Draw” can be up-adjusted or down-adjusted based on how important a system of checks on quality of content is to the network creators.
How Balance works on the network is that 5% of activity on the platform is randomly selected to be checked by others on the platform. If people want additional money from the platform, they can check content. Each piece of checked content should be shown to three people and approved or disapproved by a majority (2/3).
On each piece of content there should also be a button that people can select for Low Quality, and can then decide whether it is Low Quality because it is lazily written, uses threats, or is not in line with the goal of the platform.
If users create Low Quality content, they will have 5x the worth of that content subtracted from their equity/Daily Monetary Draw.
What This Adds Up To
The BAS Model adds up to a system that enables a fair distribution of equity/Monetary flows within a given system that has an embedded system of checks and balances. Below this table shows three different splits in terms of equity/money draw based on whether the person has added an L1 platform, an L2 Block, or an L3 module, and how much they have participated in the platform and checking others’ content.
While the idea of the BAS model can be useful as people build DAOs, it is meant for Modnet structures which will be the basis of Web 4.
