Should you pay your customers for reporting problems that they have?

To me - given my personal experience - it would be enough if the software developer would:

1) provide PUBLIC bug report/tracking

2) listen to reports/check them

3) do something about those reports

Besides bugs, more generally the software developer should listen to its customers.

Of course it depends on the specific "kind" of software we are talking of, but I have seen far too many examples of "vertical" software (those that I see as "tools") clearly written by someone possibly very good at writing software but without any idea on how the actual thing the tool is intended to help with is actually done in practice or with workflows very different from what is actually needed or that would be faster/easier/more convenient to the user.

Interesting idea. If you can do it without creating perverse incentives and in a way which helps continuous product/service improvement, I'd say yes.