Whenever I think about the idea of paywalling content on Nostr, I canāt help but think of thisā¦
Discussion
Who has mentioned paywalling? Horrid.
also known as the pandora's zap
i like seeing the variations on paywalling people are testing in fountain, like early release etc, or subscibing for a few bucks.. more testing = good.
ultimately though paywalls are mostly suboptimal, however without monetizing this way the ad model seems to win most of the time. atleast so far...
Iāve heard some people say like for example a one hour podcast
You get the first 5 minutes freeā¦.
Then if u wanna see the rest of it you gotta pay
Or like you get the trailer or a couple clips to grab attention for freeā¦
Idk just thinking out loud
Good point tho
Paywall for exclusive or premium additional content is fine. But that requires the creator to establish themselves as a known commodity. And free-to-user content should not be abandoned because growing a new audience is always necessary.
That said, it is a challenge to create enough content that it justifies and maintains a paying audience. I never produced enough content with the podcast at a frequency that I felt justified having exclusive content. It didnāt seem honest to ask for someone to trust that I had more in store for them than I could offer on the regular podcast feed.
Still, while V4V didnāt produce riches, those times when I would get a random payment from a listener felt like someone dropping treasure in my hand. It was awesome to think that someone found my show valuable enough to take the time to toss me a few bob. Meant the world and was much more rewarding than running ads or sneaking behind a paywall.
But, any model is a good model if your audience agrees with you. On NOSTR, people understand that value of patronage and finding value in the efforts of others. I think this is a perfect place for v4v.
Paywalls take it back out of the realm of giving and receiving, into buying and selling. Two different economies.
Personally, I like the first one better.
Giving whatever I can gladly, without expecting anything in return, and letting what comes be a bonus. Using zaps to appreciate the excellence or humour I see.
I guess if creators want to make a living on zaps, they can try... On YouTube we kinda know people are out to make money from their channels, but here, we're just a bunch of people sharing life.
It's like restaurants. A tip isn't a tip anymore if it's demanded. It's become an expectation, and the percentage keeps going up.
I think I agree with you more than I disagree on this, particularly on the preferability of giving/receiving vs. buying selling with digital content. But I disagree on a couple of points. First, that everyone here is just sharing life and no one is here to make money. Thatās just false. There are absolutely people here trying make money from their work. Second, there is an important distinction to make between something that is demanded and something that is expected. If an artist puts their content out into the public realm openly with no up-front charge, then they donāt really have reason to DEMAND anything in return for it. However, I do think they are right to EXPECT that some of those who take what theyāve given, give something of value back, and right to communicate that expectation in broad terms to the community that openly consumes what they produce. Even if not right away, eventually if you keep taking from someone then it is only right to have some form of reciprocation from you back to them.
Reputation
My main issue with most paywall is that it's 90% of the time tight to a subscription model. I would often pay a few hundreds or couple thousands sats once to access some ressources, like I do with PPQ AI but I would almost never start a monthly subscription if I'm not sure I will consume the content regularly all year long.
I still have subscription to some media and associations, but I had to consider them carefully before engaging and renewing, same as with a mobile, internet or streaming subscription that I would not hesitate to stop or change when required. While I would gladly give sats once or twice a week to random content if it would be a reaonnable enough one time thing.
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Still canāt zap you btw š
I change temporarily for a custodial LN address, now I can get the sats from zap, even from Primal, but it's not marked as zap by Amethyst.
Any recommended way to get fully zap compatible non-custodial LN address ?
where comes the need for a non-custodial lightning address? principle? cause the value transacted with zaps is miniscule
It's just I want to use my own domains.
Otherwise which custodial service is fully compatible with zap including notifications to relays so I can see I got a zap in Amethyst or other clients ?
i've build myself a little proxy for nostr:npub1qkdmqs7sqazsk3swa7ymvhq7g0j4fuxk06sxr395qsaw9kngvjus37h9tf (although someone told me he couldn't zap me, others can, not sure that was temporary)
That's the same issue I have with my LNbits routed by nginx, some can zap, some cannot (mostly Primal cannot).
nostr:npub1de6l09erjl9r990q7n9ql0rwh8x8n059ht7a267n0q3qe28wua8q20q0sd couldn't zap me, he seems to be using nostr:npub1jluy3twvf338v6zlujzzdhjkzjy8ezj34ksydr8vw8a6jwp89ygshpp2kq ā no problems with zaps from nostr:npub12vkcxr0luzwp8e673v29eqjhrr7p9vqq8asav85swaepclllj09sylpugg (i remember at least one that worked)
95% sure you have a CORS issue with the "dalliard.ch" endpoint: 
that doesn't look right ā will take a look
Can you check if I have the same issue on eluc@bitcoincoin.ch LN address ?
you would need to set that as your lightning address in your nostr profile in order to test it properly
I just set it back to eluc@bitcoincoin.ch if you had a minute to test.
yes looks like it works.... looks like you are in French-speaking Switzerland?
I've got great memories of summer in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Diablerets here
Nice resort. Did ski there for a long time.
with a cors issue like this, some clients will be able to zap, but some will not
to demo the failure, you can set up a separate nostr account and attempt a zap from a web client like Yakhonne or Nostrudel
ah it is about the client and not the lightning provider beeing used. cause i got two zaps from you, i guess not from yakhonne or nostrudel?
yes, CORS is something enforced by web browsers... very confusing...
I havenāt used it for a while but I think ZeusPay was fairly straightforward, if they still offer that. The fees just werenāt really tenable.
Yes, fee were bad for zap. Didn't try for long. Now they have 2 options, custodial with eCash or non-custodial with need to redeem in app within 24h.
Tbh I gave up trying for non-custodial zaps quite a while back, because the complexity and the fees vs. the very small amounts being sent on here didnāt make sense. I just keep some in my custodial wallet for zapping and keep the rest in self custody. I donāt have a better recommendation for self custody zapping š
V4V is the middle ground, between free and paid content.
The buyer market (for content) is small/niche and requires an established reputation and content schedule to capture.
Additional resources are needed to grow this target audience.
Digital content suffers the additional "immediacy" problem, where the content is only topical/relevant for a short time.
Advertising revenue sought to bridge this gulf to make paid content more accessible to more people for a lower cost, bringing its own issues.
V4V is the middle ground, but as maybe only 1-2% of the reached audience will return value, it take a large audience and great product