As an aside, I have a really hard time understanding why people enjoy spelunking. Extreme cave diving.

I literally get: jumping out of planes, bungee jumping, huge zip lines, extreme heli-skiing, surfing crazy waves, shooting yourself to space, and so forth. That actually makes perfect sense to me.

But spelunking? Putting yourself into a tiny crowded space surrounded by rock? I don't get that.

Now, I've been to a deep coal mine in Pennsylvania. It was fun to explore. But it was a safe thing where we could walk around, etc. So now I know what a coal mine looks like, and get to experience being unusually deep underground. But it's not extreme spelunking, like putting yourself through tiny rock holes.

Zapvertising (some thoughts)

337,000 sats generated ($277)

Opinion was split. I’d say about a third of users thought it was fun and interesting, a third found it useful and participated, and a third hated it and probably muted me lol.

The anchor pricing of the menu had the desired effect, with most people opting for the 1k, 5k, and 10k sat options. The higher options were only there to make the main choices feel cheap by comparison.

“Zap menus” as a concept received mixed feedback. Some people appreciated the transparency, while others felt it was a gross commoditization of interaction.

Results for influencer-based algorithmic marketing were solid. Most boosted posts saw higher-than-normal engagement, with the highest-paid promotion leading to a doubling of follower count. I suspect this has less to do with my endorsement and more to do with visibility—people simply wouldn’t have seen those posts without a larger account like mine surfacing them.

Conclusion:

These kinds of behaviors—while still rare on Nostr and somewhat at odds with its organic, grassroots ethos—will likely become more common over time, just as they have on every other platform.

The differentiating factor on Nostr is the lack of trust required to form these kinds of transactional relationships. Because the zap itself guarantees the interaction—there’s no middleman, no escrow, no contracts. Just a simple, verifiable exchange between peers. Which seems to broaden this type of marketing. And that’s interesting and different.

Just migrated our nostr.build T-Shirt shop from Shopify to BTCPay Server.

Did you even know we sold shirts?? Great quality nostr originals, we only accept sats and ship internationally!