I feel adventurous today, so I'm gonna bite the hand that feeds me. Man, are we enjoying the BIG rewards pots these days https://stacker.news/items/1439195/r/denlillaapan,. BUT, god knows we're not actually or truly here to make money or optimize income so I'm gonna hurl a pebble into this not-very-neatly run machinery.

We're all sick of Solomon's pretty tiresome tirade... (Not that I suffer too much, having had him muted for ages). But like a good horror movie, or a NAKA debacle, I also can't stop watching.

So what's up with the downzapping?So what's up with the downzapping?

The effort, if I were to steelman it, is to throw good money(?) after bad by trying to bully people with insufficiantly noncustodial setups and thereby bring forth true V4V Lightning Network engagements onto the hundred-odd souls hanging out here on SN. We gotta showcase to the world how a bunch of extremely dedicated cypherpunky Bitcoiners can send microscopic payments to each other without custodians.

In a big wide Nostr-Lightning-Bitcoin world of custody and noncustody, business integrations for payments and zaps on various social media, that seems wholly inappropriate and hopeless. Whatever you think you achieve here is tiny and irrelevant.

1. WORSE, it's self-contradictory theatre. Solomon is happy to brag about his CoinOS-derived gun such that he can do the SN transaction noncustodially... but until recently, CoinOS was entirely custodial (https://stacker.news/items/1428833/r/denlillaapan) — and even now, when it's not, you're not running a Lightning implementation without them. (Maybe, like Phoenix, you have the ability to recoup funds on-chain via back-up words, but that's a back-up plan, not "real" Lightning anyway.)
2. My SN activity also uses Lightning, though around the edges. The daily reward zap lands in a custodial Lightning wallet of mine from which I periodically make Lightning payments and withdrawals to a more noncustodial setup (Phoenix) where I manage the channel and control the keys, and from which I make occasional Lightning and on-chain payments. It's a decent enough privacy-custody trade-off adjusted by the size of the stack and relevant value. I keep way more sats there than I do custodial, and way more in custodial than I do in CCs on SN.
   Every time I buy CCs to post or zap, I use a Lightning interface. When easily accessible sats run dry (Primal, Alby, Blink) I top up via Phoenix.

Those are all Lightning transaction, me using LN in a convenient way. What's so wrong with that?

Is there some sort of divine obligation imploring me to make any monetary transaction, however minor, the strongest, most private and most censorship-resistant ever?

In Bitcoin there's always a bigger fish, a more cypherpunk setup, a dude with a better, more private or more custodial collection of wallets and channels than you. Big deal. Being at different stages is fine; it's not even a moral imperative to move upward into ever-more complicated and noncustodial setups. Spreading them out and using the right tool for the right job is perfectly reasonable.

Am I a fake maxi or not a good Bitcoiner because I can't be arsed to deal with the constant headaches of running a Lightning node from which to pay minuscule sums daily for some comment on a pretty fringe website? No, def not.

Am I a fake maxi or not a good Bitcoiner because I'd rather make a bundled payment now and again for enough CCs that'll last me a week or so, rather than fiddle with a technical setup that sends sats from me to receiver every single time? (Yes, I understand that I'm pushing the problem onto everybody else, having to dispose of these CCs, but what makes them distinctively less shitcoiny is that they quickly become real sats in rewards for those of us who use them.)

So, what's critical difference between these two sats flows:

• Extreme Solomonomics: Run Lightning Node with bountiful channels, open channel to tech middleman, attach wallet to SN, individually zap every single SN activity of note, making sats flow from [Private node->custodial middleman->SN->custodial wallet attached->private Lightning node on receiver's end]
• Medium Solomonomics: attach custodial wallet to SN to play noncustody theatre, making sats flow from [some wallet->custodial wallet->SN->custodial receiver]
• Convenient/Efficient Den Mode: pay for CCs with custodial Lightning, zap good shit for rewards, receive sats daily in custodial Lightning wallet, periodically withdraw to more noncustodial Lightning wallets/on-chain. [Custodial Lightning wallet->SN->custodial Lightning Wallet]

The more extreme the solomonomics, the more fragile the setup becomes and the more the user spends in routing fees.

https://m.stacker.news/131351

Besides, let's do some transaction cost economics here compared to the real world:
If I rent a car, I don't pay the rental company for every turn, break, or kilometers driven — we sum that up in a lump payment and leave the micromanaging to me.
I don't stream sats to my utility's provider for electricity usage in real time (tho a pretty cool Lightning feature if and when we become that developed...) but sum of the kWh burned for the month and settle the account in one go.
I don't pay the cashier in the store individually for each item I grab off the shelf, but sum it up and pay everything in one transaction at the exit.

Even if these were technically possible (which they're really not under fiat) I'm not sure anybody would prefer the pay-for-every-little-thing setup the downzapper ethos imply.

None of these instances are failures of economics or of the (fiat) payment system involved. And the fact that they're incredibly layered systems of custody (bank, fintech, payment processor, chargeback check) is also pretty inconsequential: I'm buying steak for dinner and some butter to fry it in, not making shady drug deals in the millions requiring unstoppable payments and instant settlement. I might want to take a month's salary in onchain payment for final settlement and guaranteed self-custody, but it's perfectly fine to pay for coffee with permissioned money.

There's no need to demonstrate the viability of the Lightning Network every time I engage with SN and reward someone for good content.There's no need to demonstrate the viability of the Lightning Network every time I engage with SN and reward someone for good content.

Everything, it seems, comes down to this same question of renting vs owning, self-sufficiency vs dependence, custody vs responsibility (https://stacker.news/items/1417296/r/denlillaapan, https://stacker.news/items/1330791/r/denlillaapan, https://stacker.news/items/1422689/r/denlillaapan, https://stacker.news/items/1423402/r/denlillaapan).

Not everything needs to be owned and self-custodied absolutely all the time. Bitcoin's beauty is that it allows a larger range of custodial options, enabling more trust models to function. It doesn't mean we all have to go balls-deep into the most extreme layer.

From my point of view, SN seems to work fine with this occasional CC top-up.

So yeah, have fun bro — and downzap the shit out of this post! (If I don't top the next Syndicate list I'll be crying! https://stacker.news/items/1439393?commentId=1439621).
Do fill my reward bags and ego; look how much I care.