Not all of us, but I really wonder how active bitcointalk would be if signature campaigns and bounties didn't exist anymore. I see a lot of other forums for specific altcoins--even the popular ones--as being dead compared to how alive this forum is. That tells me that being paid to post is a very significant reason why a lot of members are here.
Definitely, a large part of the forum would look elsewhere or at least lose motivation. Though, this forum has generally been the most active throughout its history even when there has been nulls in the signature campaigns, and even before them. Signature campaigns before Bitcoin smashed up in price were actually less sought after.
That's your opinion, and I'd argue the opposite. Actually, I'd argue that it's subjective and that the value of merits and the "worth" of rank vary from member to member. Some members get an ego boost from having a higher rank, while others couldn't care less. Also, if neither of those things meant anything, there would be no reason for them to exist--yet they do.
Before I go onto my reasoning about ranks, I should probably be honest, and say I wasn't entirely accurate before. Merit usually is an indicator, therefore isn't really worthless. Although, I do still have the opinion that rank is pretty much meaningless.
Anyway, yeah I'll be honest I quite dislike the idea of status. I've never really been a fan of it outside Bitcointalk, and I think it largely contributes to society problems. An example of this would be the social media era, and how that's changed everything to "I have to be this", "I have to own this". In fact, recently the biggest amount of respect I've had was towards the user EZ0010 for
this. This respect isn't because of rank, and isn't because of anything else, but their attitude. This is just the most recent one which definitely got a little bit of temporary fame, but there's numerous examples throughout the forum of lower ranks showing they've got everything going for them retrospective to their rank.
Also, I do feel that even if you were someone that valued rank, that's been partly diminished with the inclusion of merit. Since, most users are looking at how much merit you've earned, instead of rank these days.
That's why I have a lot of respect for those of you that have earned it, and by no means am I bashing on the idea that earning merit is worthless. My point was mainly aimed at rank, rank is something that you could've got by simply posting on the forum, at least before merit was a thing. That isn't all that meaningful to me.