Quadratic payments: a primer

Abstract

Recent years have seen a growing interest in quadratic voting, quadratic funding, and quadratic attention purchases as innovative social technologies that have the potential to transform how public decisions are made. These schemes improve upon traditional methods such as simple one-person-one-vote systems and private markets. Quadratic mechanisms alleviate the problem of concentrated interests having undue influence in decision-making processes and make the power of an individual’s influence proportional to the strength of their convictions regarding the matter at hand. Challenges in implementing quadratic payments include providing robust identity systems, addressing rational ignorance and irrationality amongst voters, and mitigating the influence of wealth and money power within the system. – AI-generated abstract.