just read your blog post on Nostr Addiction, and I agree with your observations of nostr as it was at that time. while nostr has grown by only a small magnitude since then in the size of its user base, I believe it is quickly growing out of the phase where engagement was primarily driven by follows and zaps.
in this new phase, relays begin to take on an important role in delineating boundaries between groups and algorithmic feeds take the place of follows to facilitate content discovery
Personally I can see a use for zaps in regards to someone who puts out a product, videos, or the like. Or the ability to receive them on an account level without them being tied to a specific post, so that there's some separation between my conversations with others and financial rewards for certain conversations. But it's nice to see the the initial zap hype has mellowed out.
As to content discovery, I enjoy the hands on approach. I enjoy talking to someone, so I follow the people they do, the talk to them. As opposed to an algorithm that is more difficult for me to understand.
I guess a concrete example is that I make audiobooks. I'm working on Jason Lowery's "Softwar" at the moment. If I posted about that, a product, I wouldn't be opposed to tips for the time and money spent. But for normal conversation with people I would want it disabled. Though I don't know how customizable zaps are now.
