I would describe Metaculus as a “play-money” prediction market. Why don’t you think it’s a prediction market? Players/users are rewarded with points (e.g. ‘play-money’) for making good/better predictions. What’s missing?
I’d imagine that all of the previous ones died because it’s a ‘bad’ business. I’m not aware of any trying to require, or even offer, paid subscriptions, but beyond that the only other revenue available to them is ads or maybe donations (or outside funding). And moderating site content generally and adjudicating the resolution of predictions is real work and thus relatively expensive.
Tho, now that you’ve raised the question, I wonder if this wouldn’t work pretty well here on this site. Maybe it could be added on to the existing question/answer feature.
One (very broad) problem – or so it seems to me (and I haven’t read any of the relevant academic literature) – with prediction markets, or even just predictions, is that there aren’t both clear (let alone obvious) and specific answers available for the most interesting questions. And realistically being able to adjudicate disputes seems to require trusting some kind of proxy, e.g. reported in The New York Times.
I would describe Metaculus as a “play-money” prediction market. Why don’t you think it’s a prediction market? Players/users are rewarded with points (e.g. ‘play-money’) for making good/better predictions. What’s missing?
What’s missing is the ability to sell my shares of “yes” or “no” to other users. A market requires having the ability to exchange commodities. I think it’s probably better to describe Metaculus as a prediction aggregator with an incentive system.
I would describe Metaculus as a “play-money” prediction market. Why don’t you think it’s a prediction market? Players/users are rewarded with points (e.g. ‘play-money’) for making good/better predictions. What’s missing?
I’d imagine that all of the previous ones died because it’s a ‘bad’ business. I’m not aware of any trying to require, or even offer, paid subscriptions, but beyond that the only other revenue available to them is ads or maybe donations (or outside funding). And moderating site content generally and adjudicating the resolution of predictions is real work and thus relatively expensive.
Tho, now that you’ve raised the question, I wonder if this wouldn’t work pretty well here on this site. Maybe it could be added on to the existing question/answer feature.
One (very broad) problem – or so it seems to me (and I haven’t read any of the relevant academic literature) – with prediction markets, or even just predictions, is that there aren’t both clear (let alone obvious) and specific answers available for the most interesting questions. And realistically being able to adjudicate disputes seems to require trusting some kind of proxy, e.g. reported in The New York Times.
What’s missing is the ability to sell my shares of “yes” or “no” to other users. A market requires having the ability to exchange commodities. I think it’s probably better to describe Metaculus as a prediction aggregator with an incentive system.
Ahhh – fantastic point. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a site like that then.