The social mining track is facing a turning point. Recently, a well-known figure announced the prohibition of rewards for users posting on the X platform, which constitutes a substantial blow to the "social mining" ecosystem that has been maintained through content incentives—Kaito tokens plummeted in response, and platforms like Cookie and others announced suspension of operations.

Where is the fundamental problem? Social platforms are attempting to block an alternative solution that can break the monopoly of KOLs. In traditional models, top accounts earn the majority of the benefits, while this new incentive aims to involve more ordinary users in profit sharing. It sounds good, but the flaws in execution are obvious—bots are rampant, copy-pasted content is everywhere, and high-quality discussions are drowned out.

Reflecting on this: the core issue is not profit itself, but the incentive mechanisms that are easy to exploit. As long as there are ways to make money, someone will find ways to game the rules.

A better solution should be: significantly increase rewards for original content, while completely removing rewards for reply-type content; strictly verify user identities, clean up platform bots; prohibit spam links and repetitive flooding.

It is foreseeable that after this adjustment, the AI water army in the comment sections will be greatly reduced, returning to genuine user discussions. The chapter of social mining may be coming to an end, but a new form of Web3 community incentives is not far off.