Its encouraging people to give their money into posts capitalizing it for individuals who are deemed “influential” and keeping it within a system that can use to silence those who do not wish to give into the system by eliminating ways for people to engage. This therefore creates a funnel preventing engagement for new users and that could be used to collude against users where individuals that build the “decentralized ecosystem”. It feels like a loot box to me but maybe I’m thinking about it the wrong way
Discussion
Indeed the wrong way. Likes are not real engagement, they’re a data collection mechanism to influence the algorithms ability to serve you content.
Only zaps actually incentivizes new users to engage in a meaningful way, rather than simply consume content. By becoming engaged, their thoughts and ideas are then contributed to the greater discussion.
This honest engagement allows their comments to be zapped, encouraging them to continue to participate. It also funds their ability to zap others they find valuable.
Influencers are often “ratioed” in todays world. But such happenings actually continue to boost their signal and influence, even though it was deemed negative or false by the community.
In an only zaps world, influencers are incentivized to continually provide real value to collect zaps, as opposed to farm valueless likes for the algorithms to continue to propagate their popularity.
At that point we end up subjugating “value” in a denomination and that denomination becomes the algorithm. Regardless of the propagation of their popularity the entire idea that the denomination itself can then be utilized to determine worth or value of an opinion in itself is censorship by taking value from someone else and leaving them with nothing as well as no hope to return anything. It’s telling a user that “hey thanks for the sats, but you aren’t *insert the adjective* enough to receive in return
This sounds like you have an expectation of likes in return for your efforts. Onlyzaps users have no expectations of likes at all. They’re actually expecting comments, reposts, quote posts, OR zaps.
Not at all. But just like anything with value that value can be manipulated just like an algorithm so I’m more interested in the idea of likes being useless but if a user gives sats with nothing in return that is not. It seems like a one sided incentive
If the user is giving sats, the return was the value they received from the post they gave them to.
There are no algorithms feeding content here, just chronological order, followings, hashtags, friends of friends, relay choice.
For individuals that value likes, they can keep them? But likes are in fact- useless. Only algorithms find them valuable to interpret a user and serve them content.
A comment with a 🫂 serves the same purpose as a like, and is more personal.
100% I agree with you but I think we are running in circles here not sure how else to explain it
Id like to know, what value do likes have for the person that is liked, that is not achieved by comment, repost, quote post, or zap?
The only arguments I’ve heard for likes involve their ability to satisfy the liker themselves, or their ability for the content server to move posts to a more prominent position for greater visibility.
How are likes uniquely valuable for the liked?
How about this: Say you want to approach someone at a bar. You wouldn’t walk in within the first 15 seconds and throw money down and buy them a drink. You scan the room, see if they are with anyone, see if you can even approach them. It’s the same thing with normal interaction or digital.
You can’t expect Billy Bob normal guy to show up see your post and throw sats or determine that they too provide value because it’s normal human tendency that they too have value or what they say has value. Although the likes do not mean anything the little interactions and little things go a lot longer than saying my sats show my worth. Idk if that makes sense
Sounds like you’re suggesting leaving a comment and saying hello should be the first step.
Likes don’t provide any way for billy bob normal guys value to be appreciated. But a comment does. Now the guy at the bar has a chance to appreciate billy bob, and start a conversation.
I agree but I feel like we still aren’t on the same page but that’s okay because nothing here is set in stone