I keep thinking there should be two upvotes. One that is just internet points and one that is a paying-upvote.
That way you can interact with the site and upvote shitty memes as you normally would, but when it is time to be serious you'll using the paying-upvote instead.
Reddit kinda landes on a similar formula with Reddit gold.
>>DirkH+(OP)
I remember back in the Slashdot days their moderation system didn’t give out Karma points for “+1 Funny” moderations so you could make fun of a hysterical or simply wrong comment by upvoting. Also you could stack negative mods with funny mods to really nail their karma.