The bots have to pay. A Nigerian Prince will need 100s of thousands... maybe millions of spam posts to find victims to scam.

And the % actually scammed by Nigerian Princes is incredibly small... meaning that Nigerian Prince scammers and spammers will need to pay lots of sats and I mean LOTS to continue spamming the internet.

Twatter has no pay-to-post anti-spam mechanisms and it is a disaster. Youtube too. Facebook also.

Reddit has 'moderation' which is different.

Only Stacker News really has the pay-to-post qualities derived from 'proof-of-work' and that alone makes it special IMO.

I understand where you guys are coming from.

Don't get me wrong, I love Stacker News and it is vastly better than so many other platforms on the internet. And I have left Reddit and Twatter... because in the future the trajectory is proof-of-work and Pay-to-Post validation for the entire internet -otherwise it will be swarmed with Bots, Spam, and AI manipulation even worse than it already is.

The article wasn't supposed to put Stacker News in the 'past tense' category (not at all). Having said that, please don't be surprised when some users are critical (super testnet being one of them?) about the new CCs instead of Sats.

In the long run, I hope Mr Trump as disruptive as he is gets wooed by the deep-pocketed 'crypto' industry and relaxes the money-transmitter-rules long enough for places like Stacker News. He seems to really like lobbyists if/when Bitcoiner/Crypto people make enough noise... and he likes the 'stocks to go up' too in the process.

It's no longer a theory in my opinion.

I don't mind if Bots post either... As long as they pay.

Eventually through the rewards pool they will be paying other users too (30% per post is siphoned for the platform itself).

In that way it's like 'mining the bots' (which can be muted anyway) and this pays out for all users in the long run.

No issue with bots as long as they pay. If they are still posting... then the 'fees' have to go up to filter them out. Hey wait... a fee market that pays out to everyone with a bitaxe... that sounds like something we know...

I understand why they've done it. I'm just saying it's... a Stacker News Token which can be only used at Stacker News.

It's like saying... hey I like the post or content someone created while sitting a Chuck-e-Cheese so I'm going to send them REAL sats for their content. Great.

Now oh wait... I didn't know they didn't have the ability to receive those sats, no attached wallet for example.

So they are sent the chuck-e-cheese tokens, without me knowing, which they can ultimately only use at chuck-e-cheese.

Granted, chuck-e-cheese always 'takes their cut' maybe 30% regardless of whether the poster can receive tokens or Sats to begin with...

But that poster receives the chuck-e-cheese tokens instead and let's say they 'stack' them? Can they later, if they finally attach a receiving wallet, withdraw those tokens as sats they can spend anywhere?

No.

Stacker News used to be Sats-Only. Now it's "Sats-Only".... except when we use chuck-e-cheese tokens too...

But if the "CCs" are custodially held by the platform... And then they are 'sent' to another user, shouldn't that user receive actual sats?

The CCs aren't being sent. The Sats are. But the sats that would be 'sent' in that case aren't the same sats as being sent by the original user - they are sending CCs for all they know NOT sats...

Like hey I have 100 CCs 'on' Stacker News. I zap someone but i don't have a wallet 'attached'. So they should receive 100 CCs as Sats right? The sats "for the user" were never custodied by Stacker News. The CCs were only used... because someone never had a sending/receiving wallet attached.

At least, that's the logical thing?

When someone 'has' CCs... and 'sends' them to another user shouldn't that user actually receive sats? Not the CCs?

"I don't think the real problem is that content is being created by bots. If you liked it, what difference does it make? The real issue is that it's too easy to take up your limited bandwidth with spam. And what's the best way to combat spam? Introduce a cost. Proof of Work."

"Pay to post should be the norm. It's the reason I ditched Reddit and only use SN. I wish posting and commenting here was more expensive. E-mail should be extended in a way such that the recipient can request sats to receive the message (eCash is a great solution here with its bearer asset tokens). Other messaging platforms should have this option as well for PMs."

Without PoW (which is the point of the article) the internet is a giant bot-show. Want to message me? Send a few sats. If I mark the email as 'valid' you get the sats back automatically.

Want to post? Pay a few sats. Bots won't do this.

Want to comment? Pay a few sats (again bots will rarely do this).

Create a new Twatter account? It will cost a few sats...

It just helps clean up the internet so much... While not requiring advertisers to collect everyone's data to such an extent... helping to preserve privacy and incentives in the long run.

"and is nothing wrong with that" Sorry, is that a statement or a question?

or

???

I wish I could send you some Cowboy Credits <3 (already spent them all sorry tear)

I always withdrew the 'custodial' sats I received. I withdrew them... and frequently zapped other users with those same sats.

So you're saying that... when I used 'cowboy credits' to send to another user (i zapped their post 100 CC) then they don't receive those very same cowboy credits?

Or they only receive part of them, and the 'rest' go into the 'general fund' for SN participants to receive in the form of sats?

At least they (the bot?) were paying per each post. Bots post on Twatter hundreds of times a day without paying anything at all. Siphoning value from other users

THIS

But "Cowboy Credits" are the same thing! Wink wink

In my opinion they dilute the use of PoW on the platform. I should be able to withdraw all the 'sats' I receive... and have those 'sats' be as valuable and universal as those I earn with my little Futurebit-Apollo-turned-Winter-heater.

Sats are derived from Proof-of-Work (which is the point of the article)... and Cowboy Credits are still a bit of a mystery to me honestly. When someone 'sends' sats and the sats cannot be received (for some reason) then the receiver gets cowboy credits instead. So SN has the 'original' sats that were sent... AND creates Cowboy Credits out of thin air for the receiver to get?

Except the receiver cannot withdraw them or use them otherwise they are for 'Stacker News' only? I believe I understand that correctly?

I understand the 'purpose' of Cowboy Credits (not be called a money transmitter) but in the process SN receives real sats and creates Cowboy Credits in the process and this isn't a great long-term solution.

Maybe it is. The number of people who have even heard of Lightning (relative to the world's population) is minuscule.

And it is the best, cheapest, fastest, and most sovereign way to transfer proof of work (Energy) for exchange across the internet.

Lightning, to me, provides immense utility. And I think it will for everyone eventually

When fees rise... there is a 'fee market' to pay for transactions which otherwise get censored. The more the fees rise for 'certain' transactions the less likely some will get censored.... a miner will pick them up eventually because they pay more.

But that fee market has to be 'dynamic' and a significant consideration for miners (it's not currently)

No, no they're not. Maybe we're just really "early" (maybe) but 99.999% of the world knows nothing about Darthcoin.

In 'my area' there aren't any places accepting Bitcoin. There are a few places in big cities... but they're not really for things that I actually need. 'pest control', 'chiropractor', 'home design' small family medical offices things like.

I would love a coffee shop it would be awesome

Tariffs are "not enough" to cover large offsets from decreasing income taxes https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/can-trump-replace-income-taxes-tariffs

And in addition, since income taxes are very progressive (the more you earn the higher the percentage you pay) and tariffs (which are basically consumption taxes) are NOT...

Replacing income taxes with tariffs is VERY regressive taxation, lowering tax rates on high-earns dis-proportionally while increasing them on everyone based on what they buy a little.

While I personally would benefit more from this is this actually what the American people voted for??? To lower tax rates on high-earners while taxing everyone more especially if they shop at Walmart?