Oddbean

What is Zapvertising? #HOWDONOSTR An entirely new market is emerging as a result of the development of Nostr and Zaps. Zapvertising has pioneered the idea of "Zaps for ads" businesses. This is an exciting development that has the potential to revolutionize the way that advertising is conducted online. Zapvertising is a new type of advertising that is based on the use of Zaps, which are small amounts of bitcoin that can be sent to other users of the Nostr protocol. When a Zapvertisement is sent, a link, video, or text message is also sent to the user along with the bitcoin. This is a much more direct and transparent way of advertising than traditional methods, which often rely on user data and tracking. With Zapvertising, advertisers are paying users to view their advertisement. The emergence of "Zaps for ads" businesses is a sign that there is a growing demand for new and innovative ways to advertise. Zapvertising is one promising solution to this problem, and it is likely to continue to grow in popularity in the years to come. Thus far, I've witnessed at least three new businesses emerge in this space. It will be interesting to watch how these businesses differentiate between one another and what services they offer to both advertisers and to Zapvertisement recipients.

This could be waaaay worse. I need a way to opt out, set a minimal zap requirement, etc. Does muting work on zaps? We’d need a whitelist for zaps - but then that really limits the potential for zaps. Advertisers are ruthless. They’ll create accounts, zap, and abandon them all to your doorstep faster than you can blink - there is nothing to stop them. They can zap you 1 sat, and it’s a home run in terms of conversions. They’ll play this game until the number of sats they need to send is no longer profitable - and that should be our primary way to control our experience with advertisers.

100%. But then you’re limited in your choice of clients. If you decide to try out another client, you could be inundated. Worse, this could be used for griefing in the worst kind of way. In short, the network could easily be used against you by those who could pay. And creating a new npub is just relief from targeted griefing. The ad bots wont be slowed. Signal will be lost. Nah, this needs to be some kind of opt-in feature at the protocol level. Send a zap? Fine. Add some text? Maybe… Bundling media with it? Starts to become problematic. Maybe this needs to be a relay-level of control rather than protocol. I’ll gladly run my own version of a relay that says “ you can zap me, but each additional byte of data accompanying the zap requires X more sats to make it through”, where I can configure X.

Agreed. If there are enough people complaining, which I'm pretty sure there'll be, then there'll be a NIP about it and client/relay will implement the NIP. Advertising will be a cat and mouse game where NIPs will need to constantly evolve to protect users.

It is a pretty good idea. @Blockstream sent me 250 sats and a link to jade. It worked in terms of engagement. I had looked at Jade a while ago but found the set up a little challenging, so 250 sats prompted me to take another look. There is a list of suppliers, I contacted the Spanish supplier, signed up to his newsletter, made my first serious Spanish crypto connection. I have plans to orangepill prospective customers, so maybe we can hook up and Jade is one of those good cold store options to suggest. From a few pennies...