1111 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 3h \ on: A Theory of Everything for Zaps? meta
I love the idea of experimenting with the SN incentive structure!
The downsides I can see with this proposal are:
  1. 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...)
  2. 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.
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204 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek OP 3h
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.
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