Awards. I know they were just a source of revenue for the corp, but they could also fund (donate to) the user’s instance receiving the award. Hell, they could also be set to donate to specific causes, selected by instance admins. The admins could give their users input on which causes to support, if the admins chose not to accept the funds themselves.

They could be optional to enable, and provide no special treatment or experience that the user would receive. They could even be not traceable per user, outside of admin consoles, which would make them useless as a way to accumulate internet points.

I’d bet there would be a good amount of folks that would take part in such an experiment. Instances cost real money to maintain, and making a sort of game of it might provide more donations than a simple “donate” button.

I’m sure there will be people who are vehemently against this idea, for privacy or who else knows reasons. There could be a way to scam money somehow, but if it was optional both as a way to give and receive by instance admins, there would be ways to kill it if necessary.