We've interviewed many scientists. Some value prestige, some value money, and some value both (some don't care about either one).
We shouldn't paint all scientists with a single brush. Also, if you think reputation is important, then you'll absolutely love our platform.
We are an accounting system for reputation (basically, we quantify/tokenize it). Also, as I mentioned earlier in our comments, we are going to limit the amount of reputation a scientist can purchase.
In other words, they will need to earn it from their peers. We are mimicking how the real world works. The only thing we're changing is that we are removing the middleman. Everything else will be the same.
P.S. It's important to put yourself in the shoes of younger scientists. You may be a senior scientist, in which case, you may have an easier time acquiring funding or reputability from your peers. Younger scientists don't have that luxury and value money very much in order to kickstart their research.