even if you don't care about it directly its still important that mana is pegged to USD in some way so inflation is less likely

I am confused. Wasn't this discontinued? It's why I got most of my Mana out again. I would probably never have bought Mana for what it's worth.

@Tassilo apparently it never was. I just followed the advice from Feb and after that at some point the donations part wasn't directly visible in the ui, so I assumed it must be gone. How are people supposed to know it still exists?

@Tassilo a while back, Stripe told us that we had to remove it, so we did, but then they changed their minds after enough outcry, so we added it back.

Also, I think part of what makes people not donate yet (total donations have been relatively flat the last few months) is because the rate of return on mana is still very high for a lot of accounts. I've made 22% in the last month and so it still makes sense for me to compound before donating. Eventually, I assume I will reach a steady state where I can only make a couple percent on the margin per month at which point I will donate excess mana.

The charity program is how I justify taking my salary in mana lol

@Austin, @NinthCause is distortionary to the economy anyways CMV

I agree it's distortionary, why is that bad? I think the main distortions have been 1) me picking up a bunch of NO on LK99 and 2) lending out mana to people. I think both have made our markets more accurate.

It makes sense to buy way more mana knowing it can be donated later than if one is just buying tokens for demonstrating predictive abilities

@KatjaGrace So I might expect it to matter more to people buying a lot of mana, and not much to people not buying mana

I kinda assume that all of the money that's going into Manifold's charitable donation program would have counterfactually been donated to an effective charity even if I (or Manifold) didn't exist. I'd love to know if I'm wrong here!

It's nice to think that I could redirect a bit of money to a charity I think is more effective than where that money otherwise would have gone, but the money is coming from (and even within Manifold, largely already going to) EA sources, so my contribution for GiveWell doesn't actually largely change where that money likely would have gone anyway.

All that to say - not that important? The charity donation program doesn't really change that it still just feels like play money to me.

@Weepinbell
https://manifold.markets/AlexbGoode/are-manifold-donations-counterfactu

Are Manifold donations counterfactual?

I want to determine the counterfactual nature of Manifold donations, and I'm looking for a response ranging from 0 (indicating "no" they are not counterfactual) to 1 (indicating "yes" they are counterfactual). My current belief is 0.5. To make this more interesting I will subtract my 2023 Manifold donations (currently $800) from my personal donations. For instance, if my Manifold donations total $800 and the chosen answer is 0.5, then I will donate $400 less than my original intended amount. I will award 1000 mana to the response that provides the most compelling argument, probably based on the results of a well executed poll or a similar approach. Additionally, to encourage active participation, I will offer a 10-25 mana bounty to interesting responses.

I created a poll previously: https://manifold.markets/jack/poll-is-donating-mana-important-to

Note that the selection effects here would probably tend to make it overestimate the fraction that cares about charity

Poll: Is donating mana important to you personally?

Resolved 51%. Which of these best describes you personally? Donating mana is not important to me personally Donating mana is important to me personally, but it's not the main reason I care about Manifold. Being able to donate mana is the main reason I care about Manifold. Respond by liking the appropriate comment below. By choosing to respond, you agree to respond honestly. You are also encouraged to discuss your thoughts in the comments. This market resolves to the fraction of responses 2 and 3 out of the total, i.e. (#2 + #3) / (#1 + #2 + #3) For fine print, see https://manifold.markets/jack/standard-poll-rules Note: I am aware that selection bias is a major concern for a poll like this. I suspect if you polled random community members, you might get substantially different results.

Super duper important!

It is important as an Inflation Reduction Act.

It makes mana feel more important than just generic Internet Points, which leads to me taking my predictive accuracy more seriously than I would otherwise.

Also, I understand that Manifold needs to find a way to become profitable (it looks like it'll be difficult for them to get further investment without much more growth. But this can't be it. Manifold should have a decent grasp of where mana inflation comes from (I'm guessing new account creation and market subsidies are the largest). Cracking down on that might be good.

For me, if I couldn't eventually donate to charity, i would eventually stop and just put a few thousand on Polymarket and Kalshi

Gave me a convenient rationalization for buying a bit of mana once, very likely would not have otherwise!

It’s an important part of my sales routine.

Well said, yeah. I personally tend to hang on to my mana or use it for bounties or subsidizing markets. But having the option to cash out to charity feels important. It's part of what keeps Manifold close to being a real-money prediction market, which is extremely important to me.