Zaps actually solve a problem. Because on Nostr and other twitter-like social media platforms, likes and following are not of much value since very easy to fake.
Accounts of recognized people following you are valuable. But those are scarse and most, even very relevant users, will never be followed my an account of real Musk or Trump - or whoever else's of less then 100 who average reader would recognize.
Long and Thouhtful replies are kind of representative of how relative one is, but those are still free of charge and most of replies are short, dumb and meaningless - easy enough to fake with bots.
The cool part about nostr's zaps, is that it is a monetary representation of how grateful people are for your post. Which means, in practice, that, unlike faking your follower count or amount of likes, zaps are actually representive of how useful you are to the readers. because it costs.
Creating multiple empty accounts to like a post is quick and easy. Add linking your lightning wallet to all those - much harder. More time consuming and is not free (of charge) because using lightning and bitcoin in general costs fees. Can't zap back and forth forever.
zap4follow would be "pay4follow" on instagram twitter or mastodon.
Which would be hidden from the public. But because zapping is so convinient on Nostr, it is common to zap4follow - which, at least, is revealed to the public.
