Oddbean

Treating zaps as likes is proving to be a failed experiment for artists and creators. In part bc we’ve been trained to like “hot takes” and to enjoy / consume content. For those of us still on Instagram we can consume for hours and never like a thing doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy it. Meanwhile over on x, our lizard brains are programmed to instantly react “like” whatever hot take, virtue signal speaks to our politics. I see this reflected here on Nostr where my hot takes will generate zaps and my admittedly mediocre gardening content is 🤷‍♀️. We need to rethink UI to retrain our lizard brains…

I many thoughts on zap behavior 😂 I think having the ability to initiate a zap from an individual note is a good thing, I think that publicly displaying zap stats on a per note basis hurts creators more than it helps them. The data is useful for the creator for gauging how a particular post is performing. But for the public viewing it, seeing that a post has already been zapped what they feel is a “large” amount actually discourages further zapping. It would be better for creators if their zap stats were not readily displayed to viewers.

This is helpful! Do you think the default zap amounts are too low? I did the math last night and 1000 sats is the equivalent of $0.60 USD. Granted this is a lot in some parts of the world but it seems like 6 tenths of a cent in USD the current default is too low

Ultimately the user should be in control of their zap defaults, but personally I hate the current zap culture that considers 21-sat zaps to be a reasonable tip for a creator. It’s insulting. Unfortunately number bias works against us with zaps that are denominated in sats. Sending someone 1000 of anything feels like a lot because 1000 is a large number. And people that are actively engaged on nostr know that the average amount zapped is 21 sats per zap, so comparatively a 1000 sat zap is much larger than average. But then when you consider that 1000 sats is only 60¢ USD it doesn’t feel like much when you’re an artist and you know people would normally drop $1, $5, etc, into a tip jar at an event. I may be in the minority, but I wish there was an option for zaps to be denominated in local currency, and the client would automatically calculate the correct number of sats to send depending on the exchange rate at the time. The type of content is a factor too when thinking about what is an appropriate default amount. For instance I may zap a musician a few dollars worth of sats for a new song they release, whereas for a photographer who shares a few photos a day, I probably won’t zap that much at a time.

We don’t need to focus on the size of the zap we need to focus on amount of zaps which ultimately mean purple pilling. If 1 million people zapped an artist 21 sats that would be 21M sats ≈ 10K cuck bucks

The scale to which Nostr would have to grow its user base in order for this to be possible even with the most popular accounts is something we won’t see for a LOOOOOOOOOONG time. But sure, for the sake of discussion, yes more scale will make the smaller zaps cumulatively worth more. That still doesn’t address the atrociousness of thinking that tipping someone 1¢ is a good tip though. The average Nostr is not that poor. Good content isn’t free or cheap to make, and if people aren’t willing to pay what it’s worth, then creators will go elsewhere. If you think good content is worth 1¢ then you’ll only get shit content that’s worth 1¢.

It is free the moment you put it out there for free. That's the nature of content in electronic format: once you put it out, it's not your anymore and people will simply not pay. Why would they? It boggles my mind, this insistence that people somehow have an obligation to pay for stuffs that's made available for free, voluntarily, or that they have to pay a certain fixed amount, but without explicitly making them do so by putting a price on the access to that content. If you feel you deserve 1 dollar instead of 1 cent for a piece of content, have the courage to paywall it. V4V has all the incentives upside down and will never, ever, "work", if "work" means paying as much to the content creator as they would get from a paywalled system.

I don’t think the creators will come if they have to wait for 1 million people to show up. Nos.social has been recruiting creators for a couple of months now and it’s slow going in part because the zaps are low. If you net out at the end of a week with 500 zaps that’s $0.30 USD. Creating content takes a HUGE amount of work. I do the bare minimum for nos and it is a giant time suck from my day. I don’t even make videos or live stream.

The other issue is that most artists are not in a position to save 100% of their tips for some time in the future when bitcoin is worth 10x more. Artists who are working to make a living are living in part off their tips. If they can manage to save some of it, of course that’s all the better, but many times income from any source is simply going straight to pay the bills. Doesn’t matter if it comes from Bitcoin or Venmo or physical cash.

Scale is part of the issue. It will help but won’t happen for some time. That’s ok though. It will come. The other, and more immediate issue is the culture that has become commonplace around zaps amounts. Number bias absolutely works against us with this aspect. 21-sat tips is a cute meme amount for the fun of it. It’s an insult though to unironically flip a penny’s worth of sats at someone for their art/music/video and expect them to consider it a meaningful tip.

Users who can afford to tip more but aren’t because they’re accustomed to getting all their content “free” from ad-supported platforms ought to pay more. The average Nostr user can afford to tip more than 21 sats for good content they consume. Doesn’t mean you have to tip every post or every creator. Doesn’t mean the user base can sustain a living wage. But it means that you, the individual, can tip an actually meaningful amount when you enjoy something.

I disagree, whenever it's 1000 sats or 50cents (of whatever fiat bucks you are refering to) I would zap the same and only on extremly rare occasions, maybe 1 or 2 per month top (that's already 12-24'000 per year, more than a domain name or Bitwarden premium, that many people already find too much to pay. However 21 or 42 or even 100 sats are cheap enough that I'm ok to zap just as a strong like or to mark appretiation for a good joke. Too be honest I don't see so many post from artist or creator that really make my day, most of my high zap (or tips via other platforms) would be for an app update that add a funtionality that I was really looking for or that make my life a lot easier/better. Even in real life I almost never tips (I'm in one of these country where people in service are well payed and don't expect any tips unless they real offer much more than the expected value). Also for some people 20'000 sats is nothing, they spend more on a cocktail or a glass of wine. For other it's money for one or several day of food. Anyone should be free to zap anything without shaming or comparison. And the receiver is free to spend it immediatly on more zap or keep it until it worth several bucks a few years later.

Yes everyone is free to zap what they want. And I am free to tell you that a 21 sat zap is horse shit if you think it is a meaningful tip. It’s a fun play amount. It’s not a tip. If you don’t see good content worth zapping more, maybe you should consider that it may be because you don’t believe it’s worthwhile to tip more.

This is a great point. I didn’t think about 1000 being a large number. I think you are correct about dropping $1 - $5 in a tip jar at events. I would be curious to hear what folks think about zaps in local currency….

As an example, I use the Nostur client on iOS a lot and when you zap it shows you the current USD exchange rate for various amounts. You can set a default zap in sats, but I would love to be able to set a default zap amount in USD and then the client just initiate a zap for the corresponding number of sats. Curious what others think too. https://image.nostr.build/507a60fe5d762fed76395675db9d4b908b480cb312e6e8d54f2810a301dec7e6.jpg

I’ve been told this by more than one person that it affects their zap behavior. Also I observed it firsthand back when Damus and other iOS clients lost note zaps, before the workarounds were created. Profile zaps were default and didn’t show on individual notes, and I noticed an uptick in how many zaps I was receiving. When note zaps became the norm again the trend of my zaps ticked back downward.