[meekmind]

> question is simply hand-waved away

I think you misunderstood me. Giving a handful of companies control over the credibility economy is not a solution and is in some ways worse than having no credibility economy at all. These "abuse detection" systems break down when they are perpetrating the abuse. In other words, as central authorities starts choosing who has access to what according to increasingly arbitrary, political, or cultural lines. The problem wasn't really solved because the free and open internet cannot continue to exist under those conditions.

Is it far fetched to assume that a bottom-up system can't also develop a decentralized credibility economy to complement the decentralized network? I think not, and one thing would likely follow the other in due course.