Influencoors vs. Creators/Artists— I don’t equate these categories. Fuck the influencoors. But civilized society would vanish without the artists/writers/musicians/etc that sustain and advance culture. Many artists make a living off their work, and often from creating multiple revenue streams off it. Nostr could potentially be a place where artists/writers/creators can generate a revenue stream directly from their audience, free of influence from advertisers and other sources of censorship. 

Zap shaming— No one should be shamed for what or how much they choose to zap, but that doesn’t mean we can’t assess the economic health of the nostr network. The current  levels of zapping and the average zap amounts are not incentivizing much in the way of anything beyond being used as a fun toy. 

People will spend their time where they feel that time is valued. It could be that simply socializing and having fun with a few people is all someone is looking for. But those people have to be subsidized by users generating and spending real economic value, and unless nostr is a place where real economic value is exchanged, then how long will it last? It won’t happen today, so I’m not trying to say it’s now or never. But I think it’s fair to say that right now there isn’t obvious incentive for artists/creators to devote a large amount of time and resources to creating content here.  

 Oof good points. Not sure why i conflated influencoors with content creators. And yeah, right now an artist would be making a good decision by posting progress pics or final products etc. and probably get zaps. But it’s just a bonus. Hopefully they have a gallery or website or something where they actually sell their work. 

 Was just thinking about posting like this for creatr.nostr.wine. Not a professional musician, so quality varies from a full track or video playthrough to literally me last night recording with my phone riffing around.

Will see how that comes around 

 I hate it that social media culture has conflated the term creator and “influencer.” One of the reasons I love nostr and v4v is because it just doesn’t seem to foster that “influencer” culture the way ad-driven social media does. Creators are free to create here, and not constantly trying to beat the algo or trying to achieve some particular level of reach/followers just so they can begin monetizing. And even then, on the other networks it would be from ad revenue which means you’re constantly trying to create in such a way that you won’t get deplatformed or deboosted. Nostr and v4v simplify it all and make it easier to be authentic. But at some point bills have to be paid, and probably sooner than the zap levels become viable enough to spend a lot of time creating here.  

 Just think of youtube, the majority of viewers would never tip even if content was always ad free.
Artists would make no money without platform ad share or paywal.