Is SN winning? \ stacker news ~meta

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3006 sats \ 42 comments \ @m0wer 2 Jul meta

stacker.news has the goal of fixing online communities with economic incentives. How well is it doing so? Are you wining son?

This is a post for defining what winning is and for assessing how well it is going.

Has there been a constant growth of the kind of users we want to have?
Does SN only work for Bitcoin related topics?
Does SN have high quality material that attracts traffic organically from nocoiners?
Has the value proposition of a better online community been proved? Are the incentives good enough?
Would SN work without the 50k sats daily rewards donation “subsidy”.
Why has the activity decreased since 2023? Shouldn't the high fiat price of Bitcoin drive attention to sites like this one? https://stacker.news/stackers/all/forever

Please leave your thoughts at the comments. The goal is to retrospect an be critical to look for ideas for improvement.

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288 sats \ 7 replies \ @grayruby 2 Jul

SN is winning as a great bitcoin integrated community experience. It is winning as a site that hosts diverse topics (at least much more than it used to) and is winning as a place to have overwhelmingly thoughtful and positive discourse online, which is rare these days.

It is losing in ease of use and losing in the ability to attract and retain users. Love SN, just calling it like I see it.

26 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 2 Jul

It is losing in ease of use

Is this primarily because of self custodial wallets? I find it pretty easy to use, but I haven't had to mess with my wallet setup in a long while.

67 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

I think those of us who have been around for a while are like the proverbial boiling frogs. We saw the various changes as they rolled out and adapted easily enough.

When I was getting a couple of people onboarded from nostr, I realized there's a fair amount of stuff to do to get going and find the content you'd be interested in.

A quick interactive guide would be useful for newcomers.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 2 Jul

I realized there's a fair amount of stuff to do to get going and find the content you'd be interested in.

What is that stuff? Knowing who you like to read from?

208 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

I should have kept track of everything that went into those back and forths.

I think some of it had to do with site navigation and some had to do with connecting wallets or nostr profiles.

It would be a good exercise to walk a smart non-bitcoiner through the setup process and note all the points of friction.

45 sats \ 2 replies \ @LibertasBR 2 Jul

I find it very easy to use. I’ve noticed that if you’re too lazy to read, you won’t get along with its layout. I can definitely see how that makes it harder to retain new users.

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @avo 2 Jul

Easy to use doesn't mean easy to fully understand. I am replying to you so yeah easy, that doesn't mean things are intuitive or explained well. I prefer to do more reading of content over FAQs and guides.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibertasBR 3 Jul

That's why I said it's easy to use. We agree. There are many other posts here besides the ones in the guide and FAQ that are excellent for beginners. I recommend it:

#252695

474 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 2 Jul

I do think that SN is a bit top heavy, in the sense that its activity is mostly sustained by a handful of frequent posters. I think onboarding new users needs to be easier. I wrote about trying my experience as a new user here: #1004728

30 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 2 Jul

Spot on.

114 sats \ 1 reply \ @LibertasBR 2 Jul

I can’t say for sure, I can only analyze the numbers you presented and my own experience. I’m a new user, and my perception is that the frequent posts by long-time users keep the system flowing, while some posts from new users or less active veteran users give more depth to the community, which then prunes that content through the zap system. So yes, I do believe it works within what it’s meant to do.

Personally, I always search for everything related to Bitcoin here first. For other topics, I don’t — and that might be the bottleneck for new users. There are many territories that could be unified under a general theme within their segment, which would help navigation. Posts that aren’t about Bitcoin don’t get the same attention and, without incentive, tend to fade away. But maybe, with time and more people using the other territories, that might change.

I particularly like the economic incentive model. I’ve seen a lot of nonsense being praised on platforms like Substack that wouldn’t get a single zap here. That’s exactly why I never bothered to use that platform.

54 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

There are many territories that could be unified under a general theme within their segment, which would help navigation.

Subterritories should address this when they roll out.

118 sats \ 3 replies \ @Scoresby 2 Jul

I don't know what kind of users are the kind we want to have
SN works for topics where there is a lot of stacker interest (bitcoin, nostr, ai, privacy, books, sports, etc). For topics with smaller stacker followings, SN is more difficult.
SN definitely has high quality content that could attract nocoiners...but it doesn't always (or even often) make it outside SN
Value prop is definitely proved.
SN works without the rewards subsidy.
I think most bitcoin-only, self custodial products are struggling right now. For starters, look at mempools...

162 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

SN definitely has high quality content that could attract nocoiners

I agree that this is technically correct, but do you think they would stick around? We're a pretty fringe bunch and I think normies would be turned off pretty fast.

144 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 2 Jul

I agree, but I'm trying to think about what it is exactly that normies get turned off by.

We might have strong opinions, but most people here seem willing to have a conversation with people who disagree with them.

But maybe that's exactly what turns people off.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

That's part of it, for sure.

I'd say the same thing that makes me feel so at home would alienate most people: the prevailing SN worldview is not theirs and their operating assumptions will be challenged.

62 sats \ 1 reply \ @5hdsw45gg 2 Jul

SN is so underrated it's difficult to explain, the amount of detail put into the UX doesn't go unnoticed.

I love everything the developers have envisioned with SN.

I'm seriously impressed.

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 2 Jul

Thanks!

104 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 2 Jul

Would SN work without the 50k sats daily rewards donation “subsidy”.

I think so, but for sure the value of zaps is gonna drop a lot. The online forum market is huge, so it's hard to break into. SN’s thing is that most of the content is about Bitcoin, so it's kinda a niche. One big issue is that most people don’t get why you’d pay to post or comment, and even 'likes' cost money. Only the true degenerates do that! Hahaha.

174 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

I think those are the two fundamental hurdles: very niche and not free.

I also consider those to be two of the main features.

190 sats \ 0 replies \ @kruw 2 Jul

The winning combination is Nostr + SN:

Nostr has censorship resistance and no trending posts, so you hear everything from the exact people you intend to hear things from. SN leans into letting the algorithm find content for you, and users feed the algo with sats.

My only issue with SN is that there are way too many territories to post in.

130 sats \ 1 reply \ @Aardvark 2 Jul

Honestly, as was mentioned already on this thread, I think the wallet thing is going to slow down growth. The first thing you have to do to start getting the whole SN experience takes a bit of effort.

On top of that, one of the more popular wallets (CoinOS) has had a ton of issues, so really, you should be running your own node regardless. That's a whole other can of worms...

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 3 Jul

We are still early. My hope is that SN and Coinos are getting their systems fine tuned (Coinos seems much improved lately) and ready for the growth that is possible- it's not guaranteed as we are up against massive and wealthy corporate algorithms but it is a possibility that this model of social media will eventually triumph because it has some superior qualities and Bitcoin use is central to enabling that. I rarely bother with other social media now as the quality of content is so poor compared to SNs.

81 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 2 Jul

No, but it's not exactly unexpected either.

We are the red dot. Lots of work to do.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

I'm going to be very susceptible to those wiggles of false hope, but I'm here for the ride.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 3 Jul

SN is one of my favourite places to visit, so in that regard it's winning and also winning on the spam front because you need to zap to comment.

i don't know how a random 20-year-old would react to it because they don't have old school forum nostalgia and the thought of having to do anything to post would immediately put them off

so probably SN has a bit of a proof of work curve to it that will probably limit it somewhat in raw growth numbers etc

45 sats \ 0 replies \ @flat24 2 Jul

Great question ... I consider that "SN" is winning, and what is most winning is to build a solid and true community.

Spamers free, full with quality content and with the possibility of opposing some value to participate or create content. (Zaps ⚡) Without a doubt, it is winning and growing, but remember that nothing grows in a parabolic way, we existing users must make that graphic believe a new fractal upwards. 📈

30 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

Great questions

@remindme in 5 hours

58 sats \ 4 replies \ @LibertasBR 2 Jul

Of course it’s winning — I learn something new here every day. This bot is new to me, and I already love the concept.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 2 Jul

It’s super useful

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 2 Jul

@remindme bot being super useful reminds me of a specific post ...

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @LibertasBR 2 Jul

Show us

38 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 2 Jul

#661571 👀

reply on another page

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 2 Jul

No, SN is not about winning or losing. It's more about creating a community that propels truth, and truth is Bitcoin.

Has there been a constant growth of the kind of users we want to have?

Yes

Does SN only work for Bitcoin related topics?

No, but it does not attend to shitcoin related and unworthy of attention content.

Does SN have high quality material that attracts traffic organically from nocoiners?

I think you should explore the top tab above. https://stacker.news/top/posts/forever

Has the value proposition of a better online community been proved? Are the incentives good enough?

Yes. Yes.

Would SN work without the 50k sats daily rewards donation “subsidy”.

Why not? There are days when there's no reward and I didn't see any slowdown. Maybe some of the Stackers who are only here for sats might leave but SN will keep on thriving. But I also don't think that SN would not have rewards, because ultimately there's a portion of spending that will always go to rewards.

Why has the activity decreased since 2023? Shouldn't the high fiat price of Bitcoin drive attention to sites like this one?

There are some changes like transforming to 'attach wallet'. And I'm not entirely sure whether the activity on SN has dropped in a big way.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @noknees 3 Jul

tf happened that time? free bitcoin distribution?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @beejay 3 Jul

I like SN over nostr sometimes, so I say yes.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @d680ecaa8e 3 Jul

If you remove intencive the participation rate will be reduced, or even if intencive is based on google adsense ads depends on the views on your comment or post without wallets because it will be much lower than actual payment rate.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 3 Jul

The need to use a wallet external to the site must be preventing a lot of people from joining the site- its a real problem as otherwise the site deserves to grow. The obstruction of Bitcoin as a MoE is still real and is limiting growth and development of the protocol and steering it toward a dead end of speculative commodity captured by bankers and governments.