I don't know that it's going to happen anytime soon, but I can see exchanges between karma and real currency eventually leading to a reputational economy. See Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. http://craphound.com/down/download.php I wish that pg would start allowing karma transfers here so we could start experimenting and I could cash in all of my stupid points, but that experiment is not one of his goals.
For a while I've told myself that I'd like to auction this username for charity, mostly just to see what happens, though I like the idea of converting my years of activity here into a charitable donation.
On Hacker News, karma really does just measure activity. My point is that it is theoretically possible to give karma more meaning than it has today.
A likely implementation seems a box where you type the username and points for the transfer recipient. I believe this was discussed a while ago, and someone mentioned that they would do programming work for karma.
I have the karma and it doesn't mean anything to me, but it means something to some people that don't have it. There are people out there that would trade real world goods and services for Hacker News karma.
The point would just be as an experiment. I'm not expecting anything good would happen immediately; we'd probably see more abuse than anything.
For a while I've told myself that I'd like to auction this username for charity, mostly just to see what happens, though I like the idea of converting my years of activity here into a charitable donation.
On Hacker News, karma really does just measure activity. My point is that it is theoretically possible to give karma more meaning than it has today.