[frankmcsherry]

(from a cursory read) You can buy votes, but they become increasingly costly. Also, the payments are redistributed out among the population, so if you spend 1B to buy 31.6K votes, that 1B gets handed to the population at large who, if larger in number, can more efficiently re-spend it voting you down.

What I imagine QV does is find the point at which participants who don't care so much would rather pocket the funds and walk away, rather than spend it on voting.

If the ballot measure is "Eat Vinnl", you might want to spend a lot to vote it down, but it might not take much to convince the others not to spend it back at you (and you all eat berries instead). If the ballot measure is "Vinnl eats everyone else", you won't be able to spend enough that everyone else can't just spend it back at you, more efficiently.

Edit: one important difference here is that unless the GP is actually going to pony up real money, something of value to those they inconvenience with their (imo silly) opinion, it doesn't make much sense.

[Vinnl]

So it's a method of exchanging influence for money for poor people, and money for influence for rich people? Still doesn't sound that great...

Anyway, I see it's been submitted separately :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15206291