Is nostr pay to play for content creators just starting out? 

Nostr is self hosted or pay. There is no real free infrastructure yet, although I wonder if ZBD has that kind of hosting capabilities.

What is the expected roi on paying to upload to incentivize that? 

Your content probably wont make much. There are a few documentary producers here @MaxDeMarco one who has had beautiful content but its not breaking even. I don’t think @joenakamoto is having a different experience.

But this is real early, we are still figuring it out as we go along. 

 Have you tried uploading video to zapstream? We tried yesterday and it seemed like it just disappeared into the void. 

I guess self hosting video is the move? @Start9 can we host our own videos? What would be the best way to do that?