Yes, this is already on the cards and in the works. not necessarily at a 50/50 but at an appropriate split given the contribution and needs of the Network, and of course with the consent of the folks involved.
We are actually planning on a direct reward system for the beta. Will need a smidge of work, and planning, and will likely have to run via the foundation with legals, but it should be a pretty cool way of getting the supply/demand mechanism working as efectibvly as we can for testing, and to make sure testers are rightly compensated for their work.
No reason we couldn’t look to a similar systems for parallel test networks/updates post-launch.
This goes right back to the original Safecoin white-paper, and is in the latest RFC too. It’s the intention that ultimately the Network would pay rewards directly to contributors as a long term, equitable way to fund development, majoring on sustainability and reducing the distorting effects of ad models. A return to direct software human utility and value!
This is a post-launch primary candidate for core research and dev (as per the WP and RFC 61), and will be funded as such, but for now we just need to keep it simple to get there.