We decided to run an experiment to confirm the suspicions Publish0x readers, are not actually reading posts published on the platform, but rather quickly scroll down to the tipping bar to get your tip. Here are the results. This is a short version of the full research report, with preliminary data, published here.

All three posts in the experiment received 1072 views, and generated 89 positive or negative reactions (that's 8.3% overall reaction rate).

The first wave was the most viewed one with 428 views and 32 reactions (7.5% reaction rate, with 0.8% deviation from the overall results - which is within the statistical error threshold for this sample size).

The second wave received 265 views and 25 reactions (9.4% reaction rate, with 1.1% deviation from overall results - which is within the statistical error threshold for this sample size).

The third wave, with the most provoking content, received 379 views and 32 reactions (8.4% reaction rate, with 0.1% deviation from the overall results - again within the statistical error threshold).

With three waves providing very similar reaction rates, it's safe to conclude that no matter how many times the experiment is repeated, the results will be always within the 2% statistical error threshold (6.3% to 10.3% reaction rate). It should be underlined that even the third wave, with the most provoking content, addressing the Publish0x team concerns, did not receive more positive results than the second wave, thus debunking the intended non-reaction attitude. In addition to the above results, we know that the three posts used in the experiment, received significantly higher reaction rate than all our 15 posts published in the Publish0x platform until now, ranging from 1.3% to 6.6%, meaning that real readers were indeed participating in the experiment.

Conclusion

As with all incentivised content platforms, Publish0x is not immune to fraudulent behaviour from its users - both authors and readers. For the reader side, it is evident that the vast majority of the readers are not reading the content published by the authors, but rather scroll down directly to the tipping banner, thus blindly tipping authors, not for the quality of their posts, but to get their own piece of the incentive. If readers are incentivised to simply visit a specific part in the article and perform a specific action, that is not connected to the quality of the article, they will adjust their behaviour to earn the most from the platform - they already have.

If the Publisher0x team wishes to promote quality content and quality interactions from its readers, the incentive system should be adjusted accordingly.

If you really liked our research, and you have a BAT or two spare in your Brave browser, we would welcome a tip on our Twitter account, here.