what is your opinion on pay-for-fake-engagement sites? things like aqstr...
feels kinda legacy social media tbh, and completely inauthentic
Discussion
Pay4bots
I was thinking about this the other day. How can a user have more than? Let's say to be generous 10000 followers. When we only have anywhere from 4 to 5000 active users on nostr. Seems off. Do we really have that many tourists or are these people just paying for followers?
I assume +50% of people who follow me have left Nostr.
I think I legit have 10-20 max daily active followers. Maybe even less tbh.
Oh yeah DAU is way less. My estimate is monthly. And 50% is generous 😂
You're probably right. I had to unfollow a boat load of inactive accounts with the zombie killer service 🥲
Im not leaving. If this ship sinks im going with it.
Yeah the zombie thing makes the slow trickle of people leaving pretty obvious. I run it every month or so. Everytime I think, "oh I remember them" for a few of the people in the list 🥲
But also having thought about I don't know if nostr is really supposed to replace social media, I think we've been looking at it wrong. What it does do is funnel all of the like-minded people that have Bitcoin as an ethos into one communications platform.
I hope that's not the case. If Nostr is just another echo chamber it has not lived up to its promise I think.
Its doesn't have to be. And it certainly has the potential not to be. But ... it is dominated by bitcoiners. And im not complaining.
I think it will be the “other stuff” besides just social media that gets people on Nostr apps….
Better communication
Better privacy
Better features
A few examples I’m thinking of is bitchat
Like if people needed to communicate with no internet 🛜
Or data storage uploading files…
Satellite.earth is a Nostr app and Ive tried everything I could think of to upload my videos and nothing works except thst app.
A lot of people see it as a backup but that’s because they haven’t felt enough pain yet - similarly to bitcoin once inflation and or transactions being censored gets bad enough….
Once people realize they don’t have freedom of speech and this is the only way…
Kinda like they say people get bitcoin at the price they deserve
Same with Nostr I think 🤔
But all roads lead here….
Or what about when Nostr musicians start making 10x more money than non Nostr musicians because they can go live to the whole world and get paid directly without a middle man or third party.
Or what about when Joe Rogan gets purple pilled and goes Nostr only…
Maybe it will be gradually then suddenly
Like the internet and like bitcoin - Nostr may be the same ?
It will be obvious in hindsight I believe
I think about this all the time, what even is the purpose of social media, and the answer is that it depends on what you use it for. Constantly reframe this, until the nostr stream can match what WE want and not what matches profits for megacorp advertizing data collecting.
hell, I think it's just aliens branding us digitally like cattle at this point. 😂
Maybe, lol.
I do think Nostr is so much more than just socials. It has to be for it to work. The social layer is just one facet.
> Bitcoin as an ethos
#cointards
Ride or dies go down with the ship
Never heard of that shit 🤣 is it a thing? If it is I guess nostr is winning.
Their $299 price for a lifetime subscription for (very likely) fake engagement is enraging
Holy shit 👀
I saw the app on zapstore :(
I don't like it but maybe it's useful to someone
i tested it when it first came out since I test pretty much everything on here. Works well, but definitely not real engagement.
In general, I don’t like them. Paying for engagement feels artificial, undermines genuine discourse, and is kinda ghey.
That said, I’m not outright opposed to them, and they do have specific use cases.
For example, it could be useful for anonymous whistleblowers who need visibility to push legitimate leaks into public awareness. Especially when centralised social media can censor their posts and WoT on Nostr could get in the way too for new accounts.
I like it as much as I like seeing the Rizful bot add noise to discussions.
I think it has some niche use cases. Getting out info on meetups, events, etc that could get you on the trending page and get more eyeballs. For just general content I hate it though
The focus that i like is the tasks for sats and different configurations. It doesn’t just have to be engagement
I think the service is great and its worked well for me. It's an efficient way to get new eyes on your content. Most notes that any of us write just ends up in the "nothingness" and that's fine, few of us say much meaningful anyway.
A bit different take.. let them. That’s the joy of a feed that I can curate as the viewer. If I don’t want to see it, I don’t have to look at it. #primal and some of the others have gone to an algorithmic feed. There’s only one algorithm for me… which of my real friends posted something most recently.
For me, using nostr:nprofile1qyw8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytfsxgh8jcttd95x7mnwv5hxxmmdqyvhwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ycmgv43kktndv5hhyetvv9usqgrvy7j65q4hd8rt287hahvqckephxar9stdjyajhj8pv9lmg4eksqfh8mhq is mostly for boosting visibility rather than seeking "real" engagement. Many big NPUBs don't understand this: they often claim that follower count doesn't matter as long as your content is good. But the reality is, they can post "penis," and it can get reposted dozens of times, quickly trending.
As a user, I agree that most engagement isn't truly "real," and people are often just chasing sats. Let’s be honest, that's also v4v. However, while the ratio of "real" to "fake" engagement might be lower, in absolute numbers, the amount of "real" engagement could actually increase due to greater visibility.
Bottom line: you can use Nostr however you want.
What’s wrong with that?
People are free to engage and get zap and people paying for the service are basically paying for engagement (fake or real).
Besides, you can have a requirement of Trust Score to participate in the engagement quest. This legitimately removes a few bots.
nostr:nprofile1qqsx8x8ptc6pdhsf8wtregu8s0f2v65k2l9s3ja6fup9gmxa2km0rfq45xgga you created this and Moonstr?
Yesstr
It’s bullshit. We need less of that
You're asking this on nostr.................