A Theory of Everything for Zaps? \ stacker news ~meta

Alternative Zap Incentives

I just read #733858 and @Scoresby asked the following in there (see my emphasis):

What is the incentive for zappers?

SN rewards (and the leaderboard) look to me like an attempt to incentivize zapping.

If SN removes rewards, the only reason to zap good content is "good will." It seems to me that the less we have to rely on people doing the "right" thing and the more we give them an incentive to do the "right" thing, the better everything works.

(I would say this is one of the major flaws of most governments: we expect elected officials to do useful/good work without providing any sort of incentive to do so. People are self-intetested. We can rely on this.)

Do you have thoughts on alternative ways to incentivize zapping?

(I suppose an incentive for zappers might be to encourage more good content, do you think this is a good enough incentive?)

Unfortunately, this powerful question was ignored or nobody had answers.

However, I came up with an idea that might be able to unify what I call the "theory of v4v" and the "theory of incentives":

A Theory of Everything for Zaps?

What if zapping is incentivized not by rewards but by making SN more expensive to use if you don't zap?

In such a system, you essentially have the choice between paying more via posting fees or saving the costs by zapping stackers who produce the content you want to see.

Since you would pay the same in both cases—assuming you actually intend to post something—, "good will" is eliminated out of the v4v equation. It no longer matters since you're paying either way, it's just up to you who you're going to pay: Who provides you more value?

I think this system could make stackers happy that see the leaderboard and rewards as antithetical to v4v and I would agree with them. The problem (until now?) was just that we should not rely (exclusively) on good will for zaps.

Since zaps would still be used for ranking, the sybil fee would still exist in this system. So we would still have a pool of sats funded by fees that we could use for something. They could still be used to reward the top stackers (even more now). Zapping would also no longer be a Keynesian Beauty Contest since we no longer reward zapping so there are no opportunity costs to not zapping what you think others like. You can simply zap what you like.

Could therefore a system like this make everyone happy? Maybe, but there might be a few problems ...

Zap Budgets as Territory Settings

This system essentially creates a zap budget since posting fees can't go lower than the territory base fee. After that point, zapping is no longer incentivized and v4v boils down to good will only again.

But since these zap budgets exist per territory (it doesn't make sense to pay less in ~bitcoin because you zapped someone in ~nostr), if this becomes a real problem might simply depend on how high the initial zap budget per territory is and when they reset.

As an example for all of this, let's assume you're new on SN and you want to post something in ~bitcoin which costs 100 sats. However, since you're new, you haven't zapped anything today yet¹ so maybe it's actually 1000 sats because the zap budget for ~bitcoin is 900 sats. You're now incentivized to zap content in ~bitcoin you like before you post something. Since zapping is no longer rewarded as a signal for the frontpage, you can also zap old content, you just need to zap something in ~meta. In theory this should be the content you like.²³

This would also make territories feel more like territories since your participation in them via zaps directly contributes to you being incentivized to post there thanks to lowered fees.

But as mentioned above, this incentivze would only exist if you actually want to post something. If this also affects replies, it would be more effective but lurkers would still have no incentive unlike with rewards for zapping.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts, I am sure there is more fun to be had with this or completely different ideas for zap incentives since I literally came up with this what feels like a few minutes ago (according to my first message about this in our internal comms, I have been writing this post for 2.5 hours already).

Resetting them every 24 hours probably makes sense. ↩
this introduces a way for abuse again since zapping your self gives you the same lower fee as zapping someone else ↩
Another idea I had was to make this independent of order by reserving increased posting fees for zaps within the next 24 hours. ↩

view all related items

1 reply \ @ek OP 16h

you just need to zap something in ~meta.

there is the typo I wasn't able to edit in time. This should have been ~bitcoin of course.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @didiplaywell 14h

No clarification needed! "something" is understood as the amount

1111 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 43m

I love the idea of experimenting with the SN incentive structure!

The downsides I can see with this proposal are:

It is hard on newbies (if you don't have a lot of sats, it might become hard to post, and I don't know how freebies would work in this scenario -- although, at the moment, I can't remember the last time a freebie post showed up on my SN front page...)
Positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement (seeing the little pink writing in my notifications that informs me that I stacked some sats in rewards feels great! knowing that I don't have to pay quite as much to post probably won't feel as good. SN has been really smart to get the "make people feel good" thing right on a lot of counts. I'd hate to see one of those go away.)

In my perfect world, the base case for SN is a free market: this would mean that there is no need for rewards for zaps: it is in stackers' own interest to zap good content so that there is more good content on SN making SN a more enjoyable place to spend time.

However, rewards were one of the things that blew my mind when I first started using SN and definitely got me more engaged than I might otherwise have been. On most social media, I'm the kind of lurker-user who reads a lot, occasionally posts, but rarely gets into conversations. Rewards gave me a nudge to zap and interact more than I otherwise would have.

Rewards are clearly an important part of how SN functions.

Rewards for zaps are the hardest to understand and the easiest way to game [rewards]. #771504

This rings true. Rewards for zaps feel like the most complicated part of SN. It is difficult to understand what behavior gets a stacker to the top of the leaderboard. And so a method for assigning rewards that is not solely based on leaderboard status could be interesting.

Rewards are the incentive least directly connected to the behavior that produces them. When you see a notification that says you earned some sats, it's not immediately clear which actions produced this reward. When you look at the leaderboard, it's not immediately clear what put you in the place you are and not somewhere else.

Unlike some of the fun easter eggs on SN, rewards should be as clear as possible. When they are unclear, they dilute their power. Knowing that I made 100 sats in rewards for zapping a specific post is a more powerful feedback loop than knowing I made 300 sats over the course of a day where I posted a couple things, zapped a number of posts, and commented on something else.

I'd love to see rewards become more specifically tied to the behavior they are trying to reward.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 23m

It is hard on newbies

Yep, posting will be more expensive and maybe not even just initially, but overall for everyone since even if you post good content, it will be more expensive for you if you don't zap regularly. More zaps flying around sounds good, but not if it makes the experience worse for everyone by feeling like they now have to zap. Which is a good transition to your next point:

Positive reinforcement is better than negative reinforcement

Thank you for being the first who mentions this. I totally agree, I was just too lazy to mention this and simply said "There are a lot of UX issues with lower fees for zaps" in #771516 👀

In my perfect world, the base case for SN is a free market [...]

However, rewards were one of the things that blew my mind when I first started using SN and definitely got me more engaged than I might otherwise have been. [...]

Rewards are clearly an important part of how SN functions.

Same happened to me when I joined SN and I agree, they are an important part. I am just worried about rewards becoming too important and some new stackers "never growing out of them", diluting the v4v part of SN. It's all just feelings though. I don't have any numbers that I can point to, though I haven't even tried to find such numbers.

Btw, good description of the "theories" I am trying to unify: the perfect world of v4v vs a world where outcomes follow incentives. Both make sense but if you put them together, you get messy, misaligned rewards as we have now. Can we not do better?

Rewards are the incentive least directly connected to the behavior that produces them.

[...]

I'd love to see rewards become more specifically tied to the behavior they are trying to reward.

Oh, good point, I totally forgot that we had plans to make this better, we just didn't have time yet. Thanks for reminding me!

Gradually improving the issues in the current system instead of throwing it out for a new one with new (bigger?) issues definitely sounds smarter.

33 sats \ 2 replies \ @TheWildHustle 3h

Its pretty interesting how on nostr there is pretty much no incentive to zap, but over the last week i've received more zaps from nostr than SN.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 2h

Interesting, any idea why? Did you post more on nostr than usual?

77 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 1h

Pretty much same frequency as normal.

Some user zapped me 1k which made a big difference (was posting about my start9 troubles and guess freak felt bad for me)

Nowadays, i'm zapping smaller amounts on SN, so that probably plays a part in it as well.

And I dont think I received SN rewards the last couple of days.

157 sats \ 4 replies \ @Fabs 8h

A problem I often face myself, is that I don't find the things I do sufficient or good enough, I.e: I'm already working 3+ months on a prototype for a pouch, in this case a Small- and Medium Version.

The reason for this is that I'm still very much a beginner, but also because I always feel like it can be done better, and that's absolutely fine - up to a certain point -, but there has to be a point on which one decides that it's good enough.

I think SN is at a point on which the platform is good enough already, because honestly: How often do you find people seriously complaining that the platform sucks? Compared to other options like Reddit, Twitter, Nostr ( from what I hear), we're absolutely nailing it over here on SN, why change that? Because it "could" be done better? Sure, but I think the risk / reward of changing SN "for the better" is becoming smaller and smaller... Let it be.

122 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek OP 2h

I think SN is at a point on which the platform is good enough already, because honestly: How often do you find people seriously complaining that the platform sucks?

They don't necessarily say the platform sucks enough to leave, but discussions about rewards—how it's hard to understand them, how they are gamed by some, how the top 3 stackers are almost always in hiding, how the leaderboard isn't v4v—happen quite frequently and if they don't anymore in the future, I am worried this might be the case due to resignment, not because it's no more a problem. I am sure @grayruby can tell you a story about that 👀

Removing rewards for zaps and replacing them with lower fees might improve some things around rewards. Rewards for zaps are the hardest to understand and the easiest way to game them. In contrast, rewards for good content are easier to understand and not as gameable.

why change that? Because it "could" be done better? Sure, but I think the risk / reward of changing SN "for the better" is becoming smaller and smaller... Let it be.

Imo, we don't risk so much by testing it for a week and gathering more feedback. We can always change it back.

But yes, we shouldn't change it too frequently or too much as @IamSINGLE mentioned in #771113, but I don't think this temporal change is too big. What speaks against testing it out for a week to see how everyone feels about it before continuing or reverting? If some stackers really don't like it and they know it might just be for a week, would they never come back if we change it back?

I don't want us to stay in some local maximum when SN could be so much better and attract more users. This should be in the interest of everyone here.

Imo, rewards for zaps have always been the most lazy and boring incentive. It should at least be easy to understand then, but that's not even the case here. Understanding how your behavior affects your rewards is basically impossible currently.

I mentioned in the past somewhere that people don't necessarily want money, they want what money gives them: opportunities, experiences, value, freedom etc. SN relying (exclusively) on monetary incentives for the behavior we want is ignoring that.

I would even argue some stackers are less active, left SN or never even joined SN because they think rewards for zapping is weird because it's not v4v as they know it, especially if you're not rewarded for what you like but what others like. That can get quite predictable over time.

Ask yourself: do you zap based on what you like or do you rather zap based on popular nym before you even read the post? Maybe that would still be the case even without rewards but rewards directly incentivize zapping the popular stackers; distorting how zapping was meant to be used.

Having a weekend where everyone is anonymous would also be interesting.

33 sats \ 2 replies \ @Fabs 1h

Sheesh! Calm down cowboy, you've won me over!

I do zap based on what I like and what I value, the nym behind it isn't all that important to me, and I'd also be curious what a week of anonymity would look like.

You've clearly given this a second thought already, and I was too fabs, too furious again...

^ Should've been typed in the size you used on the "anonymity"-part, how do you do that, master @ek?!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 1h

^ Should've been typed in the size you used on the "anonymity"-part, how do you do that, master @ek?!

Markdown guide or #771504/edit 👀

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 1h

Thanks, Master.

Thanks.

230 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei 15h

Structure drives behaviour, so engineering the processes such that people have to zap sufficiently to benefit from a lower posting fee sounds right in my books. I also like the idea of how zapping old posts will be stimulated.

I just think that for newbies who don’t have a lot of sats to start off with, they could be at a disadvantage since they don’t have so many “chips” to play with. (Unless we are moving towards a culture of attracting Bitcoiners who are able and willing to channel a pool of their own sats to SN.) But I came here with zero sats and built my empire from scratch haha. I hope this USP of SN can remain

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 15h

I also like the idea of how zapping old posts will be stimulated.

Mhh, just realized that this causes a disconnect: top content is only rewarded on the first day but zapping new content is no longer relevant. Maybe stackers would still rather zap new content than scroll through old content to find something they like but this disconnect is still concerning.

Sorry if I bursted your bubble haha

I just think that for newbies who don’t have a lot of sats to start off with, they could be at a disadvantage since they don’t have so many “chips” to play with.

This is a great point. We currently have freebies for this but not sure how well freebies would work with this system.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Msd0457890 4h

I have been on SN for a short time and I think the system as it has been run up to now is excellent, there is excellent content.

202 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 12h

Hmm, very interesting post.

My first reaction was with my "engineering hat" on: Is there a problem here that needs fixing? In other words, are zaps not sufficiently incentivized right now? Is the "beauty contest" phenomenon becoming a problem?

From my observation, it doesn't look like there is a problem. Top posts can easily earn 20k-50k sats which is USD $18-$45, far above the minimum hourly wage in the U.S. and probably much more outside the U.S. Unless these zaps are mostly from SN-affiliated accounts, (or perhaps subsidized by a handful of generous stackers) it doesn't look like Stackers are being stingy with their zaps.

Moreover, I generally find the top posts to be good posts. So, if there's any beauty-contest dynamics going on, it doesn't seem to be elevating low quality posts, at least from my perspective.

But it does bring up the interesting question of why people zap. Here are some of my reasons:

For the cowboy hat / pistol
I find the people are more willing to engage with my content if I consistently zap their replies. This does two things: it tells them that I read their replies, even if I don't respond, and it tells them that their thoughts are valued.
By zapping, I encourage and reward the content that I want to see. While it's true I could potentially free-ride off other peoples' zaps, no one here has the same preferences as I do. If I want to tailor SN more to my own preferences, my only choice is to zap the content that I like.
- Strategically, I suppose the incentive here is to zap content that others don't like but I do. I think I do do this, in fact. I'm more likely to forget to zap a post that already has a bunch of other zaps, and more likely to zap lonely posts that I find interesting that others haven't yet elevated.

All this to say, I'm not sure that incentivizing more zapping is a problem that needs to be solved, yet. But this is my perspective as a user, perhaps SN thinks differently about it.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 1h

My first reaction was with my "engineering hat" on: Is there a problem here that needs fixing? In other words, are zaps not sufficiently incentivized right now? Is the "beauty contest" phenomenon becoming a problem?

I wouldn't say it's broken currently so "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" definitely applies here but I am worried it's breaking slowly over time. Consider this post more like a research article about what we could do, not what we should do. I don't know if we should do this but I want to find out.

I think we're incentivizing zaps enough but we do it in a discriminating manner which isn't what v4v is about. I also mentioned this in #771516.

All this to say, I'm not sure that incentivizing more zapping is a problem that needs to be solved, yet.

Exactly, it's not necessarily a problem that needs solving yet but it's worth thinking about the problem the current system causes or might cause and how we could improve.

77 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 1h

Personally, I think that as SN scales, the biggest challenge will be surfacing high value posts to the right people, and not letting good, high effort posts fall through the cracks because they didn't get enough attention in the first few hours

That being said, I do like the original idea, that zapping more makes posting cheaper, and letting territories set the policy. I share the concerns of some other stackers that this would have a chilling effect on new or infrequent users, but presumably by putting it in the control of territories they will find the right optimum for themselves

147 sats \ 0 replies \ @didiplaywell 13h

Anything that mimics a real market (p2p, v4v) will work. Maybe the question is "where do SN differs from a real market, so that it provides undesirable incentives?". How will SN differ? In a real market every interaction is equilibrated, for you can only interact via v4v. So wherever there's no v4v, quality will degrade.

For example: low quality content in Nostr is being caused due to zero initial investment that can potentially lead to apparent effortless gains. But the risk to try is zero so even if it doesn't work it's a no-brainer to try just in case.

In social networks where there's no immediate economic revenue, there's nothing like "try just in case", and at most you have to spend great effort to attract a large enough audience to even start being able to make money. So at first zero risk is found with zero gains. This is a special case of v4v where costs are equally 0, so v4v transitions to content/reaction: you write to get a reaction you consider worthy. You give content to get content back.

In the case of SN, zap gains are equilibrated with the fact you have to spend to post. Having a high enough initial risk, the v4v in terms of money is equilibrated enough, so that v4v in terms of content/reaction is more independent of an imbalance in v4v in terms of money (Nostr is still imbalanced), prompting good quality content back again.

Follow the market. Exchange equilibrium is the maximum law. Anything else follows suit.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 11h

don't the separate considerations for each territory divide them into separate silos?

So far, I pay much more attention to the post than the territory it was posted in. If the system incentivizes me to zap only in ~econ or ~booksandarticles or whatever, I have less reason to engage with anything else

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 1h

don't the separate considerations for each territory divide them into separate silos?

Yes, more than currently at least

So far, I pay much more attention to the post than the territory it was posted in.

Me too and I think that's a problem. Territories shouldn't just be tags. They should feel like a community of which you are a member of and help to build and grow. But we've been so busy on wallets this year, we hadn't had time to improve territories to get closer to this vision ...

If the system incentivizes me to zap only in ~econ or ~booksandarticles or whatever, I have less reason to engage with anything else

The system incentivizes you to participate where you zap, but it doesn't mean you can't zap+participate somewhere else, too.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @IamSINGLE 13h

In my honest opinion, tweaking a lot with an established system that's working fine isn't a good idea at all.

Those who are trying to say that current system of rewards on SN is faulty are exaggerating a lot of things.

38 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 16h

I feel there is still a lot of improvement that can be made on SN. First the CCs need to be rolled out before anything else. I did like what another post said, clarity in who zaps what would also be nice to see. I think there would be less abuse then. You were also hinting at territories that have select members, right? That would limit a lot of abuse, especially if each terrritory had an admin.

37 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 16h

I did like what another post said, clarity in who zaps what would also be nice to see.

I can currently only imagine us implementing this as a setting: if you don't mind zapping in public, you can disable the privacy setting. Having all zaps be public with no opt-in or opt-out can also be a reason to not zap to not expose yourself. Being able to express your opinion in private is important.

But I guess a setting would defeat the reason why this was mentioned.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 16h

Im not saying it needs to happen. I just think it would keep the community a bit more honest if everyone could see where zaps were going. I feel like most of us wouldnt care, because we are honest with how we use SN. It would just help identify the abusers of the system.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @Noobboy 13h

I am still a noob to understand all this yet i will say just do not try to change much as this platform is already good and superior to Hacker News and Reddit in terms of quality content. These changes should be needed when this platform have huge amount of people like HN.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Undisciplined 13h

Does this have to be an either-or choice?

It seems like cheaper posting fees could be an additional incentive, right alongside the rewards system.

62 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek OP 1h

I think if we do both, the worst of both worlds is worse than the best of both worlds.

My main issue with rewards for zaps is that it encourages zaps in a discriminating manner which also makes it harder to understand, gameable, etc.

We're basically incentivizing zaps in a way that contributes to SN becoming a Reddit-like echo-chamber. That's probably too harsh of a criticism, but I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes more and more the case as we grow.

There are a lot of UX issues with lower fees for zaps, but it might be worth a try. Or something entirely else, I don't know.

75 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 1h

There's a fine line between echo chamber and rewarding content users value. That's the fundamental incentive problem across media.

You know that I'm all for experimenting, but remember that not everyone shares that attitude.

I don't actually think the current structure devolves into an echo chamber, unless all of the top zappers have hyper aligned preferences and only zap content that conforms to their/our worldview.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 1h

Thanks for your feedback. I maybe should mention that I am just shooting from the hip here and just think there might be some zap incentive out there that is better than we currently have. Lower fees for zaps might be it or not.

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 16h

This is a very interesting idea, it’ll take me a bit to think it through.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @sangekrypto 14h

That's right, the post incorporates some discussion, just need some time to think about it.

21 sats \ 5 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 16h

Perhaps letting everybody know who is upzapping and who is downzapping would be beneficial. Is the price different for either? I know that the fee structure drives posting to differing territories, is that one of your incentives? Perhaps a good place to start would be to figure out what behaviors you specifically want to incentivize, then devise a strategy for zapping. You could arrange so a person with multiple accounts could NOT zap amongst them.

39 sats \ 4 replies \ @ek OP 16h

Perhaps letting everybody know who is upzapping and who is downzapping would be beneficial.

I don't think so, see #770984

Perhaps a good place to start would be to figure out what behaviors you specifically want to incentivize

zapping

You could arrange so a person with multiple accounts could NOT zap amongst them.

How? We already know who is zapping who. We just don't show it for privacy reasons and we can't know for sure if the same person is behind some accounts unless we KYC everyone which we obviously don't want.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 8h

We already know who is zapping who.

And that's why I zap mostly as anon.

15 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 16h

Another point is: does zapping come before incentives for other reasons or do other reasons come before zapping in the list of priorities? Where do you want more zapping? You could strengthen that on the leaderboard movement weighing

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 16h

Aren’t there other behaviors that you want to encourage by the zapping? One of the problems with zapping is having enough to zap with. It is awfully tough for the nooby to zap when he does not have any sats to zap with. Perhaps arranging for some zaps to be more valuable on the leaderboard over others would encourage zapping. For instance, zapping a new bio, to get noobies going.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 8h

zapping a new bio, to get noobies going.

Wrong ! I found many assmilkers posting a "pro-bitcoin" bio just to grab more sats in the beginning and later they change the whole bio and even the alias and start posting crap. Be aware not be assmilked!

Better is to let them show their true face, it will be very fast in their first posts. If you do not know well a stacker, always go back to see their first posts...

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 16h

A unified theory. Zap relativity meets Quantum zap mechanics.

Mind blown!

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 9h

So far SN new features made me do big changes in my SN behavior. I didn't wanted to do these changes but I was pushed by SN several changes:

hide my SN account from the leaderboard
zapping from outside of my SN account. Yes I withdraw the sats and I zap anonymously so my zaps will not be reflected in my SN account stats (even that I hide it from leaderboard). I do not want ek to watch me.
downzaping a lot of shitcoiners and assmilkers. In the beginning I never done such thing, but now I am forced to do it. Maybe I should do it even harder.
zap less because there's no good content to zap.
I am too busy hunting assmilkers and shitcoiners than answering pertinent questions on SN. The level of questions about Bitcoin went really down on SN. Now a lot of bots and assmilkers only want to post endless "thanks", "nice post", and all kind of stupid answers that are not creating engagement at all. They just want to assmilk some few sats. And this end up in wasting time on SN.
I am posting less guides. Seeing that people are NOT interested at all in reading and learning, why I should write them ? Fuck'em. But this also have a consequence: people will learn less about Bitcoin. And that is not good.

So in conclusion, SN slowly became another reddit. All this pushing with "come to SN to earn sats" is a total bullshit. MAKE THEM PAY!

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Msd0457890 4h

But do you propose that this system that you have proposed be implemented or would we add it to the current one?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek OP 1h

I am proposing to test this system (or something like it) out instead of the current system

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Msd0457890 43m

You see many flaws in the current system, perhaps it should be improved but not changed.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek OP 42m

isn't every improvement a change?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Msd0457890 31m

if that is true.

Alternative Zap Incentives

A Theory of Everything for Zaps?

Zap Budgets as Territory Settings

Footnotes