The hat in itself doesn't matter at all, I'm not saying that. What matters is how much time you have it because that's a measure of activity that is erased. That's the status, not the hat in itself. Besides that, it's not the sole point of my argument, nor the most important. My argument is that the same way the hat is defined, the ranking is defined, which I consider detrimental in the way I described.

I think you're making a storm in a teacup. The hat doesn't influence anything, it's just a status symbol. If you lose it the next day, you can win it back.

0xbitcoiner

Thank you, I didn't know :)
However, I should have made clear in the OP that I'm not looking for optimal strategies to get rewards, it's just not worth the hassle, at all. I'm just sharing my view on why I think that the current scheme crosses the line between *compensating good interactions* towards *forcing interactions*, in contrast to what I understand it intends.

Donations to the rewards pool also help maintain your headwear, so you don’t have to randomly zap something 

WeAreAllSatoshi

You are saying it: you have 24hrs, hence, a day. That implies daily commitment. Just one day off and it's all gone. Expecting a user to not to miss a single day to keep score, as another user posted above, ends up causing anxiety. You have to devote time, and even more, mental energy, to consciously zap something you consider worthy. Most probably, you wont have that time and energy strictly every single day, so to not to lose score and rewards, you just enter quickly, zap blindly, and done.

didiplaywell

SN Reward Scheme Flaw and Suggested Improvement

that doesn't make sense, you have 24 hours to zap and thousands of posts/comments, how does that encourage random zaps? 