alt Hacker NewsYeah, Polymarket is explicitly advertising this.
>Research shows prediction markets are often more accurate than experts, polls, and pundits. Traders aggregate news, polls, and expert opinions, making informed trades. Their economic incentives ensure market prices adjust to reflect true odds as more knowledgeable participants join.
>If you’re an expert on a certain topic, Polymarket is your opportunity to profit from trading based on your knowledge, while improving the market’s accuracy.
You know what's a great knowledgeable participant? An insider.
Replies
>Yeah, Polymarket is explicitly advertising this
no, they are not.
you might have been an insider working on the Apple Newton, and being enthusiastic about it you might have broken the rules and traded on your "knowledge"... and you would have lost your shirt. Same with your very knowledgeable enthusiasm about myriad other technologies. Ever wonder why Wall St doesn't show up at HN asking everybody's opinion about AI in order to leverage that info into billions?
an important element of "the wisdom of crowds" is many bits of microknowledge. How many Teslas will be sold next year is very dependent on how much the people who buy Teslas will earn next year (or how secure they will feel in their jobs) working in myriad other industries that have nothing to do with Tesla, along with the price of lithium, tires, and even ... wait for it... gasoline.
Polymarket's words you quote can just as likely refer to the wisdom of crowds. Or even, and this is the subtle part: Polymarket's insiders may believe, like you, that they are creating a market to trade on inside information, and yet they, like you, could be made wrong by the superior sum knowledge of the crowd exerting its invisible hands all together to tank your Apple Newtons.
I have come to the opinion that every successful tech company is basically just an arbitrage scheme to avoid regulations and extract value based on that advantage.
Airbnb for unlicensed hotels. Uber for unlicensed taxis. Amazon for whitewashing fraudulent products. Bitcoin for unlicensed securities and laundering money.
The pattern is upsetting.