This would be interesting as an auction with a reserve price as well as a marketing mechanism. The artist says I need to make at least $x. People can pay $1 to the artist to either increment or decrement $x by $1. Album drops for everyone when $x decrements to zero. If the auction expires without hitting $0 the artist can recut/release the contents in some other form after returning the money to those who committed it to the auction.
Swift could make a killing. Anyone who is loved and disliked could novelly monetize the dislike.
Also, fun smart contract. The $0 condition drops some decryption key for pre-released-but-encrypted content.
The cost to the owner if the release never happens is zero, so he just needs to match whatever $n is the total that everyone else has paid and gets to keep $2n, so the $n is profit that can never result in the album being released.
In other words, the ability to decrement the current price as well, effectively lets the owner set the release price to any arbitrary value above the original stated value, without any oversight or recourse for the people who have already paid.
I am not sure I agree with you if the haters always pay and the lovers pay only when the album drops (see my child suggestion to the idea post).
Artist sets the reserve to $x. Artist hates against themselves to $x + $y at a cost of $y.
Case 1) Auction goes to $0. Artist therefore makes $x from others and $y from "self-hate" netting $x, the original reserve.
Case 2) Auction does not go to $0. Lovers get their money back. Haters do not. Artist recups $y from self-hate and is even on the transaction. Up, actually if there were other haters.
What broke?
The artist driving up the price via $y seems to be net zero aside from reducing the chances that the auction goes to $0. But recall, the artist wants to make money so reducing those chances isn't in their interest.
The other haters got to hate. Purely Lulz. So their got their money's worth.
The lovers did not get an album but their money was returned.
You're right that the artist could force an album to not be released. But, recall they pre-dropped the files and are only releasing a decryption key. And the artist does not have infinite money to avoid being exposed as a fraud if the encrypted stuff turns out to be pure crap. There's real reputational risk.
If the nominal price is $x at the start and needs to drop to 0 before it'll sell, then the seller can artificially sell at a price higher than $x, by simply putting his own money $n into sale, so in this case the sale happens after the seller lets the total value drop to zero, at which point purchasers have paid $x+$n and the seller has also "paid" $n. However, as the seller is paying that $n to himself, that hasn't cost him anything, but he still nets $x+$n from the paying customers rather than the $x it was presented as.
The seller can do this as long as they like if there is no bound on the auction time, he can e.g. roughly match contributions to keep the price above 0 and at the point it seems like people are losing interest and no more bids are likely, he can then "pay" the difference himself to force the sale through (remember, he'll get this back anyway).
There's even a third option - on a time limited auction, maybe the money raised is already higher than they think they'd ever realistically get if the auction was repeated, or sold elsewhere, but still not at the $x threshold, the seller can just pay the difference, knowing they'll get it all back themselves anyway.
In every case, the seller is in complete control of when, or even if, the sale actually happens and for any price they want, regardless of the originally advertised price. There is no scenario where allowing people to bid to reduce the cumulative value of the auction (your "haters") can ever be fair on the other bidders (your "lovers").
> However, as the seller is paying that $n to himself, that hasn't cost him anything, but he still nets $x+$n from the paying customers rather than the $x it was presented as.
I don't follow...
For every $1 the seller puts in as a hater the seller always nets exactly $0 under the rule that haters always pay. $1 of hate spend by the seller goes back in the seller's pocket. Net $0.
For every $1 the seller puts in as a lover the seller nets $0 under the rules that either the album sells or the lovers don't pay. Net $0.
It is true the seller can artificially inflate $x + $n for $0 cost to themselves (because the $n goes back in their pockets). But they cannot inflate the money they receive through their own actions. This is essentially the illegal act of "painting the tape" in securities markets, namely making it look like meaningful economic activity is happening when none in fact is.
> ...he can then "pay" the difference himself to force the sale through
Sure. No self-dealing is precluded.
The seller could also give the album away for free outside the auction, anytime.
How would a smart contract release a decryption key at some point in the future without external input like this? Couldn't someone just fork the chain and manipulate it with arbitrary amounts of self-mined ether?
Swift could make a killing. Anyone who is loved and disliked could novelly monetize the dislike.
Also, fun smart contract. The $0 condition drops some decryption key for pre-released-but-encrypted content.