Reward programs initially began as a way to build customer loyalty.
There are a few benefits:
- most loyal tend to be the most profitable
- cost to serve goes down with retention
- often serve as marketing distribution
Tokens today have similarities
- loyal token holders serve as a marketing distribution and bootstrap networks
- they also contribute direct work to the protocol itself
Loyalty point programs, however, with bad incentives, can lead to:
- quick turnover / gaming the system
- short term marketing stints