As I understand it, merit is supposed to be a way to reward high quality posts that benefit the community, not a currency with which to pay for private services. But there's already evidence that merit is being abused, if that's the right word for unintended use cases. I guess it's a matter of opinion. In a free economy, people will do whatever appears profitable.
Now that I received my precious first merits, I've thought hard about how to use them. The easiest way would be to hand them out one at a time in response to individual high quality posts. But I apprently received mine (first 4, then 6) because the people who gave them to me thought I deserved to make member. So I've also given thought to reciprocating that by specifically meriting junior members whom I'd like to see reach the next level. I realise this isn't exactly what theymos intended, either. But those 'post here if you think you deserve merit' discussions, as well as those seeking merit source status, currently take up a lot of space in Meta, so maybe they would need a sub-forum.
Your merits and sMerits are 2 separate things, so even though you have 10 merits in reality you only have 5 sMerits that you can send to other people. And when you send those 5 sMerits, your actual merit score will not be affected.
You're completely right. Merits are not supposed to be used as a currency, it's supposed to a symbol of quality and potentially even a secondary trust score. For it to become a medium of exchange on a free market would be unfit. We've already got bitcoin for that.
Plus, if OP's idea was really carried out, then the merit sources can basically do anything they want including selling off their merits. This obviously isn't what anyone intended the new system to be.
