The massive conversation about zaps & positivity is insanely interesting to me. As a generally upbeat person, it's been obvious to me for a long while now. Nobody is an asshole all the time & when someone who tends to be that way a lot experiences a moment of genuine acceptance while simultaneously being disregarded over dickish behavior, something clicks, or can click anyway. When that happens repeatedly, habits start to form. Unlearning. Connection is far more valuable than simply being heard. It has little to do with popularity, zap counts or size, or topic really. All of that scales. It's about communication & acceptance. When altered attention is removed from the equation, we all will do what we try to do in other aspects of life, maximize the pursuit of happiness. Contentious conversations can happen with no need to drag everybody & their dog into it, defending a position for which they hold little or no vested interest, reducing noise & further need for defensiveness, so the quality of debate can remain high. Zaps provide a way to give & receive actual, tangible, and direct feedback to the things that truly matter to us, like sharing knowledge, celebrating successes, finding/providing encouragement through difficult situations, or sharing pleasurable moments/insights/humor. Will people try to exploit that? Yes. Will people fall for it? Yes. Will someone who's extremely negative but bold in sharing their opinions be rewarded for that? Yes, not because they're cynical but because people agree. Will it scale to millions? That's yet to be seen but I would imagine that rewarding negativity will only gain any meaningful ground around well known figures who create polarity whether they choose to or not. Maybe some weird circles of shit-talkers will have their little hate clubs for rewarding eachother's snark but that stuff will be isolated away from anyone who doesn't want to partake & those people will be participating in their own type of joy. Will sharing value for positivity reduce over time? Likely, but only because the scarcity of value will far exceed the prevalence of common culture. Eventually zaps will be mostly reserved for revolutionary discoveries, quality entertainment, virtual baby showers, and the like. Boosting & replying will gain more social value and act as a precursor to the exchange of monetary value since attention comes first. Will the introduction of 3rd party algorithms change all of that? It could, but having the awareness of & the ability to opt in & out could be the saving grace of a social media landscape that I, personally, had been near abandoning until I had the good fortune of experiencing early nostr. Watching it grow has reduced a lot of my apprehension. I've got to be either pretty bored or pretty busy to spend any amount of meaningful time with the existing variations of curated content. Having the ability to create a personalized, quiet or busy, space where I define the mood & signal through my own interests & the interests and attention of others has been incredibly impactful. Again, zaps enhance that effect dramatically. Whether sending, receiving, or simply witnessing, it's a good feeling to know you're among people who find value amongst eachother.

Anyway, I can't be accused of being positive & nice without sharing some of my thoughts on the subject. Whether they matter to anyone beyond myself is irrelevant.😊