Primitives Fast Track

The Accounting  This is how we account for value rather than the philosophy or science of the value. For example, I can say by seniority, but not tackle how you gauge seniority or critique it.  Some primitives we use to account for the value are. Deliverables: product, art, utility or intrinsic. Here we are talking about an agreed-defined deliverable—an app, a function, a library, an article, a music piece, a process or a speech

Time-based: Common in freelancing and consultancy,  time spent on task deliverable contribution. Many DAOs will hire part-time and full-time for roles identified which is also a variation of time-based work. For example, RaidGuild can size the work per hour. Aragon might employ a product manager.

Probation: Having a point in time where the accounting is evaluated differently. Completing a cohort in RaidGuild or passing a test phase around a month  in DxDAO.

Intensity commitment: An uplifting factor based on the lets say a weekly commitment with the intention of rewarding who dedicate a more significant fraction of their time. DxDAO or Creator Cabins uses time commitment as an uplifting factor. Units in RnDAO might choose the contributors based on a required threshold.

Longevity commitment: Based on the duration of the commitment. Yearn.fi and Curve use staked governance tokens. Creator Cabins incentivises longer season commitment. It is common in traditional startups and DAOs to have vesting schedules where a giveback is scheduled as the individuals stay long enough.  Skill-based: Usually valid for time-based accounting, an uplifting rate that can change for developer, community, and marketing. The basis of this is regular market rates.

Entrant order based: Uplifting factor used if the individual is classified as a founding or early entrant.

Seniority/experience based:  This is an adage to measure the quality aspect by accounting the previous experience. DAOhaus, DxDAO, Cabin and many DAOs use it. When role-based placement is the subject, traditional, web3 and DAOs use junior/senior and diverse definitions of these rankings.

Peer-assessed:  Decided by the collective and a subjective measure occurring after the value has been created. The perceived value accounting can be adhoc like tips or consistent as in Commonstack (Praise), RnDAO or Yearn.fi(coordinape)

Competition:  Competition-based rewards have been long used for crowd creations, open innovation, crowdsourced development and DAOs to have several parties submitting work while a selection is rewarded/

Self-set: Sometimes it is based on an arbitrary value that the individual or entity proposes and is valid once accepted.

Bounty: Might have emerged in a sheriff’s office for fugitives, reclaimed its place in web3 for tasks advertised to an audience in a permissionless manner meaning all can participate. Bounty can be similar to competition but can also be acceptance-based, meaning only selected can submit work.

Retrospective: When a value is calculated after the task is delivered, eliminating judging and agreeing on the value before delivery. Meaning it is not guaranteed as well.

Right by belonging:  This is by belonging to a particular entity and having the right to receive an income. It might be Universal basic income at the government level,  DaoHaus base salary when you join a Guild or UBI DAO such as Kleros/Proof of humanity. Airdrops to existing Members performed by DAOs like IndexCoop can also be classified as a right by belonging.

Engagement:  Sometimes called the movement model, this is a collection of pre-defined engagement activities. It can be outcomes or granular activities like tweeting, voting and commenting. Some DAOs MetaGammaDelta(with Govrn) and Maker (with sourcecred)  utilise it.

Performance: The common mechanism used widely in sales and can also be any performance metrics.

Reputation: The mechanisms used, even monitored activities, can be similar to engagement. Reputation is the score of the individual, which can be an uplifting factor. DAOStack implemented a reputation system based on governance activities and gives another example.

Percentage-based: This is a standard compensation model for business development. It is somewhat closer to performance; however, it focuses more on profits/shares and the value created for the organisation. The most common is profit-sharing or revenue-sharing—sales both traditional and web3 native. The value is generally quantified by a portion of an activity's value to the organisation. i.e. 10% of a new deal, 20% of the expansion. This model forces to incentivise and aligns the activities to the P&L, balance sheet and other value streams to the organisation. Business development in RnDAO or Raidguild can be classified within this primitive.

Means-tested: Measure of existing income levels and comparison to a threshold   I am sure there are more but let us stop now.