I love Digg, I love del.icio.us, and I love flickr, I use them a lot, and other social networks. They help me to keep in touch with my friends, colleagues, relatives and sometimes old crushes. Now the recent debate sparked off by Jason Calcanics to pay top diggers $1000 has separated the whole blogosphere in two parts. One who support it, one who don`t.



Before taking any sides, let me tell you that I loved the concept of social networking where everyone contributes in his own way, some do more some do less, but everyone earns the same in terms of money - nothing. I admit that being recognized and appreciated by everyone is a reward in itself. Some people also make good contacts out there, which help them in their future careers or plans.



Digg will get a lot of money when it eventually is sold, Del.icio.us and Flickr made a lot when they were acquired by Yahoo. My content contributed to the high price cost they received. So should I assume that I did it for charity? Heck no, I spend my time on these sites, I enjoyed, I had fun. Therefore, what is there to complain about? A social community will lose its value if it will find that the other people, who are doing the same thing, are being paid.



Everyone is not equal now, it will become an elite club, does Jason wants that? I suspect the recent announcement by Jason is nothing more than getting the mileage out of a bad PR stunt.



Paying people to promote a community is not bad, and if you ask me I will favour it, but not Calcanics style. See what Newsvine and OhMyNews are doing. Sharing money or let people decide who should get paid. That’s what I call democracy aka social community style.



P.S.: I have done a similar post on Digg and Democracy.