Personal motivation is a huge part of it. It is the norm on social media to “do it for the likes” and their systems are built to reward that behavior. Thinking it doesn’t carry over into how people behave on Nostr is foolish.
Discussion
I’m sure it does and I’m sure people will continue to care about how many followers they have and will attempt to leverage their followers to make money. Incentive structures matter and help to dictate behaviour. There is no doubt about that.
For many, another mental hurdle to hop over, is that sats are more than a store of wealth. Some may be so committed to holding that they are unwilling to zap content 🤷♂️
Some may be completely unwilling to zap, but I think that changes over time as they see them in action. But yea I agree it’s a hurdle for some. The problem is where we’ve all come from. Nostr is unlike any social network any of us have used. When it comes to content (I’m differentiating “content” from casual social interaction like this discussion), there is always a price. We pay for content with our time, our attention, and/or our money, whether or not we realize it. Traditional/legacy social media monetizes our time and attention, and in some cases allows for direct payments to creators (super follows on Twitter, for example). If we are unwilling to pay for content in a way that is meaningful for the content creators, then they will either go elsewhere or we will find that our time and attention on Nostr become more monetized in the way of ads.
💯agree.