I’m fascinated by experiments using quadratic funding to provision public goods (good overview from : mattsclancy.substack.com/p/optimal-kick). Could this mechanism fund research—and in particular, tools for thought, which suffer from public goods problems?
Two challenges I notice:
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1. The crowd will be bad at pricing novel research. QF depends on people accurately pricing goods. But early on, the value of research is often non-obvious. This exacerbates a current problem: program officers often underrate especially original research—and that’s their job!
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What about people funding research bounties as well? Doesn't gitcoin do this?
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My theory is that the crowd won’t effectively price early-stage research. I don’t see strong counter-examples in prior Gitcoin rounds.