The further I keep digging into that topic the less I agree with you even though I see where you are coming from. Incentives do make votes meaningful.
Here are the 5 most common incentives to pick from:
- GOALS. Some people are motivated by the pursuit of a particular achievement, and the knowledge that they’re the person who made something happen. For example, the billionaire space race between Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk.
- GLORY. Others seek the public recognition they get from achieving something. For them, an achievement would feel much less rewarding if no one knew about it. This incentive is common in areas like academia and sport.
- GUTS. For some, it’s more about the arduous journey. For example, many marathon runners are spurred on by the gruelling hours of training and the mental resilience required to succeed at long-distance running.
- GOLD. Putting aside the goal, the recognition, and the challenges along the way, some people are simply motivated by money, prizes, or some other kind of tangible reward.
- GREATER GOOD. In the cases of climate change, persistent inequality, and other major societal challenges, many people are called to innovate by an inner sense of justice or altruism, care for others, and a desire for a better future.
Translated to our “voter apathy” cause I would formulate it as follow:
- The people who are already motivated by the pursuit of a particular achievement, by that I mean seeing OP win are already participating and are already actively voting and delegating. They don’t need another incentive. (But I guess these are the least of all people)
- People seeking the incentive of GLORY could be incentivized by some sort of badge of honor similar to getting a NFT by finishing a certain quest. Make a quest for participating in the delegation and voting process.
- Nothing comes to my mind that would be comparable to this type of incentive to be honest. (probably need to think about it a little longer).
- That’s the incentive I’ve already pointed out and which is the most obvious thus I won’t go into further detail. (For reference see my earlier post here)
- This is what we are already doing here by discussing the topic and trying to find a solution to it. We are doing it for the greater good.
In summary these are the types of the most common incentives we could use to fix the apathy of voters.
Furthermore if I look at the most common reasons for not voting include (source):
- People don’t think it makes a difference
- A complex voter registration process
- They don’t like the candidate or campaign issues
- They are to busy of having conflicting schedules
Regarding Number 1 I’ve already taken my stance on this one in my inicial post, which can in my opinion only be fixed by showing them that their vote can make a difference. But to make it thus far we first need to get them to vote at all. Since there is no complex voter registration process we can discard this one as well as not liking the candidate or campaign issue since I guess we all more or less like OP and want it to succeed. Number 4. however could be tackled by giving people a monetary incentive because nobody is too busy or has no time - it’s just not their priority. By giving an incentive whether it is by completing a quest and earning a NFT or getting rewards in form of OP tokens or even being eligible for future airdrops will definitely solve this one. So 33% of the issues we face today could be fixed by giving people an incentive. Thus I have to come to the conclusion that I have to disagree with your overall stance on “Incentives aren’t going to make votes meaningful to the point where stakeholders see it as being in their benefit to participate in governance, whether by voting, delegating actively, or engaging in discussions.”!