Nostr confession: Having witnessed the rise and fall of dogecoin & platforms like ChangeTip, I am skeptical about the sustainability and usefulness of social micro-tipping. I'd love to be proven wrong over time; but if the value being given is real, the cognitive load for continually, arbitrarily & voluntarily giving away many, many tiny chunks of money is just too high to sustain after the novelty wears off. Less-frequent, higher value tips offered for exceptional circumstances or content may be more sustainable, but penny-shaving "like" equivalents don't make sense to me.
Discussion
The amount is irrelevant to me, it’s the ability to make that value 4 value instant connection that is amazing. It sets a precedent about where we’re heading and that is a very exciting renaissance in freedom of exchange globally
The irony of this note being zapped is not lost on me, LoL.
i look at zapping as a zero sum game, the zaps go around and you get what you give
do you consider zapping as a stacking opportunity?
i started nostr with 0 sats on my wallet and all zaps i get are being introduced to the community
i was deemed worthy by my zappers and ill find people worthy of my zaps
Feel all the above and comments can be true and don't conflict.
I wanted to donate to a news outlet yesterday to support the journalist but $50 minimum and a pen/stickerpack in return did not seem worth it.
Maybe but the real innovation is the ability to transfer fractions of a penny instantly with no censorship. That means no more paywalls. Content is unlocked. For example… I’m a big sports fan and care about my particular college team. The Athletic charges an annual sub even tho I only want to read various articles throughout the year. Lightning will open that up to pay per article. A couple cents.
As the user base increases, the zap culture and norms will shift. I think the micro zaps for note content will always remain and there'll eventually be paywalls for other content and the (truly) free market will decide where that pricing falls.
Agree, I've always though "tipping culture" is wishful thinking, flying in the face of reality. And I am someone who often donates one-off to open source projects I like, but this kind of funding never seems to properly "stick".
The model that I like is (a) subscription and (b) not often tried yet, but: paying incrementally for new content in crowdfund style (per paragraph; per chapter of video or book or whatever). Creating a social contract between a consumer and a provider of content, where the provider *clearly defines a ruleset*, is something that's always seemed to work. Look e.g. at patreon.