In theory, writers could kickstart posts using dominant assurance contracts. An example (this is a real offer): If you send $20 to arjun.panickssery at Gmail via PayPal by noon New York time on January 21st, I'll send you back $25 if fewer than 10 people sent me money. If 10 or more people send me money, I'll post a review of Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by the end of the month. I'm not sure whether I'm just giving away free money right now.
1,000
3.00Just contributed my $20!
Fun fact: I also experimented with a dominant assurance contract as a Manifold market, to fund the implementation of a Dark Mode: https://manifold.markets/Austin/kickstart-will-the-manifold-communi. Sadly, it didn't hit the funding level required...
Manifold in the wild: A Tweet by Arjun Panickssery
https://manifold.markets/ArjunPanickssery/will-arjuns-dominant-assurance-cont