Thinking about my issues with ZBD being run by rugging thieves and the current situation with Bitcoin Magazine not allowing folks to withdraw sats has served as a good reminder that "not your keys, not your bitcoin" is true, but there's a layer above that.
For folks who are stacking sats through various apps, you haven't earned those sats until you've actually withdrawn them. Bitcoin Magazine can keep saying "you've earned 5 sats1 for reading this article," but you haven't "earned" jack.
The moment I knew Stacker News was legit wasn't when I first got zapped, or even got some nice feedback on a post (though that was enjoyable, of course), but when I clicked "withdraw" and saw a whopping 100 sats move into my wallet.
I just withdraw 200 sats from Satsback; I'd made a purchase through them on eBay in March, and as they clearly note, you'll get credited with your sats but they'll be "pending" until the merchant confirms that you didn't return the item. In this case, it took nearly six weeks. Which is fine, but until this week, I wouldn't have called Satsback legit because I'd had no evidence of it working, even while my dashboard there showed a positive balance.
I've "earned" thousands of sats at Ember and FreeBitCoin. I haven't received a single sat from either, since both only distribute onchain and require a huge amount to withdraw (and Ember also has a bunch of other rules: like only doing it during the last two weeks of the month, after entering a bunch of their prediction tournaments, and after conducting a human sacrifice2). I've also lowered the amount of time I bother spending on either site/app as a result.
There are TONS of apps that will "earn" you sats, but if you haven't actually gotten those sats under your control, they might as well be Flooz, and you haven't stacked anything.