I think there would be some additional complexity regarding sats-earned.

Who benefits is thread is merged? 
If earning is split, I would be incentivized to create duplicates of top performing posts. I suppose you could prorate, but there is prob some additional complexity 

I like that. Sometimes you end up in situations where two threads grow big and talk about the same thing. I'm not sure how often it would happen, though 🤔

kevin

I like the model where users pay for their mistakes. Duplicate link posts cost more. 
Not sure how this would translate to discussion posts. 

random_

bitcoin

Moderation via merging of threads and deleting dupes

My preferred approach would be to notify a user when posting that this topic has already been covered - using the title they choose to search existing posts.

IMO giving users better tools/signals to self-moderate >> moderation