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Currently the downzapper is at a 3x disadvantage. In order to downzap my post 100 sats, the downzapper actually has to pay 100 sats. On the other hand I only have to pay 30 sats to zap my own post 100 sats (as long as I use a sock puppet or anon to do the zapping). This is already a pretty strong bias against downzapping.
I don't think that that's reality. That's a theory that everyone has a sockpuppet.
In reality this happens:
- I pay a fee to post. Say 100 sats, these are all the sats I have
- You zap me 100 sats, i get 70
- Downzapper zaps down 244
- My post is now invisible.
- Now I can boost 70 sats, my post will still be (barely) visible, but at least I got my non-invisible post out, which cost me 100 sats
It's not 3x more expensive for the downzapper. It's 1:1.
Thinking about @k00b's point that it causes problems to assume that one account = one person, perhaps it does make sense to treat boosts (self-zaps from your own account) like a sockpuppet self-zap rather than the current 0 sats from a boost go directly back to the booster -- some possibly do via rewards.
If the reality you describe is what often happens, it means we have a easily gameable distortion built in: if someone uses a sockpuppet to zap themselves, it is clearly one-sided in the self-zappers favor:
If we assume both poster and downzapper start with the same number of sats:
| action | poster balance | downzapper balance |
| starting | 500 | 500 |
| poster pays 100 sats post fee | 400 | 500 |
| downzapper downzapps post 100 sats | 400 | 400 |
| poster sock-puppet zaps 200 sats | 340 | 400 |
| downzapper downzapps post 200 sats | 340 | 200 |
| poster sock-puppet zaps 300 sats | 250 | 200 |
| downzapper downzaps post 200 sats | 250 | 0 |
| poster sock-puppet zaps 200 sats | 190 | 0 |
Perhaps SN needs to operate on the premise that using a sockpuppet never gives a stacker an advantage over using their own account.
Sure. But the post fee was 100, not 500. And you said yourself: you try to find alternatives to ~privacy due to the post fee there... of 500. What I'm trying to illustrate is not that you're wrong in theory, I'm saying that that's not what happens, and it would be a pretty sad outcome if the constant sock puppeting were the actual case.
In the end the problem isn't so much that downzaps are 0.3, 1, 2 or 3x as powerful. It's that there are not enough zaps in general, and definitely relative to downzap budget. You can see the problem expressed graphically on the top right here. Check out the zap and downzap total expenditure for 2/18.
When I decided to test last week what would happen if I were to do big zaps on @SimpleStacker's post, I knew it was going to be matched, that was not what I was fishing for. What I wanted to know was: 1. who will "zap with" to defend the principle, and 2. who will hide their tools. It's a test to see if there is a reason, for example in September this year, to think that stackers are going to fight. I think I've gotten a pretty good idea who will fight.
I didn't bring my tools back out because i'm afraid of solomonsatoshi, fwiw. It was always a bit of a joke to begin with that blew up into something bigger than I ever intended it to be, so after I few days I decided to go back to "normal".
I don't mind keeping my cowboy essentials hidden still though. SS can downzap me all he wants.
I dunno abt this, I feel like we are letting one vandal significantly change the way the platform works.
I'll tell you how it likely plays out. The scope of people to downzap narrows after people will unhide their cowboy tools and thus the cost lessens. Compliance with an aggressor because they're sick of their posts being desperado'd all the time, is the status quo in 99% of stackers' day to day.