What crucial role do they play? (Honest question.) For content creators, I think it's probably better to convert readers into subscribers (e.g. BOLT12 recurring invoices), in the patreon model. For content consumers, the patronage model is also probably better at intelligently funding the kind of stuff that's good for you rather than a dopaminergic ad hoc process of zapping.

For algorithms, my understanding is that zaps are just an unverifiable statement between two people, e.g. you and I could sign a zap saying that one of us paid the other 1M BTC without even a single sat changing hands. If they were verifiable, they'd seem to give algorithmic advantage to rich people and that doesn't particularly interest me.