I’ve been analyzing the incentive structure of SN for a while from a game theory perspective, and frankly, I’m skeptical. As someone coming from a technical background, it’s hard to believe that rational actors would voluntarily spend hard-earned sats just to "upvote" a post without a direct ROI.
In theory, the Lightning Network makes micro-transactions seamless, but psychology usually wins over technology. Why would a user choose to deplete their balance for content that is already free to consume? It feels like the platform relies more on "tipping culture" than a real exchange of value.
I’d argue that most "Zaps" here are either automated or part of a vanity metric, rather than a genuine economic validation of the content. Change my mind—is there any data-driven proof that people actually spend sats here purely because they value the information, or is this just an experiment in digital altruism that will eventually dry up?
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You could read @SimpleStacker's series of Research in Public posts, where he shows that zap amounts correspond to quality.
That's where I'd start.
I've written a bunch of posts about related topics, too. In short, though, zapping more (provided you actually zap the right things) does provide a positive ROI, compared to most people's zapping behavior.
My instinct is to ask why we even should try to change your mind. Most of us know that we zap stuff we like and we know that our better work gets zapped more. Maybe you should just give it an honest try and see what happens.
No. You know how to play this game and you zap to get rewards.
Rewards should be removed totally.
I zap what I like. When k00b completely took zaps out of the rewards formula I still zapped posts and comments.
Since you acknowledge that I know how to play the game, clearly I’m not doing it for the rewards.
My point is that people don’t realize they can be supporting the content they like more than they are, at no extra cost to themselves. I’ve written a bunch of posts about this, as you know.
if rewards are removed, how would a newcomer like me prove their 'proof of work' to the community?
i get your point about people gaming the system, but isn't the whole point of lightning-integrated social media to put a price on attention? if the content is bad, people won't zap. it's a free market, man.
anyway, i'm here for the tech and the talk. the sats are just a nice bonus that keeps the lights on lol
The biggest mistake of SN was to be promoted as "post to earn" platform.
Knowledge. But if you came prepared as "let's post to earn sats", then your knowledge is worthless.
Your focus on earning sats should be outside of online forums like this. Getting few sats online consider it just like a tip, an attention, nothing more. Do not rely on that you will get billions of sats for what you say online. Do not fall for that crap game. There are many others that will try to fool you to fall into this game.
You want to earn sats for real? Work hard and demand to be paid in BTC. In real life not online postinng.
No zaps here are automated as far as I know - certainly we, SN, aren't automating them. Also we have and would never report fake zaps.
It's certainly an experiment and digital. It's also somewhat altruistic, but there are rational reasons to zap: to encourage more of the content that you value.
What is there to dry up? Like humans stop behaving the way they currently are? What data-driven proof do you have for that?
"I apppreciate the clarification from the source. When I say 'dry up,' I’m mainly looking at the marginal utility of participation.
My skepticism comes from the fact that in almost every 'Value-for-Value' expeeeriment, there’s this honeymoon phase driven by early-adopter altruism. But as any platform scales, the 'noise' usually grows faster than the 'value.' If the cost to filter that noise (the sats needed to boost or zap) starts to outweigh the actual reward, rational people eveentually drift away.
I’d call it 'Incentive Fatigue.' We've seeen it happen in Web2 with attention, and I’m curious if sats can actually solve the human eleement here. I’m not saying SN is doomed—I’m just questioning if the current eequilibrium can survive a 100x increease in the user base without it becoming a 'pay-to-play' environment where only the whales' voices matter."
That's what we're here to find out and we are all trying to enjoy the ride while we do. If you need evidence of how the future will unfold, I can't provide that to you.
I think this is AI. Em-dashes give it away
It absolutely is slop, but I enjoyed the question. It seems like a good question even if this is one of the usual slop gooners that milks here.
Slop gooner milk?!
Oh no. There are two many memes colliding in this one.
I think he refers to "automated" in the sense thatt some users are zapping a certain amount all the time for whatever reply.
You are right. Most of people here are zapping automatically. "Automatic zap" means they use a default amount to zap and click to zap for whatever reply.
Few are zapping as a reward or v4v for the information received.
Many are zapping because they know to play the SN game of rewards.
As I said many times: SN should remove the rewards pools that give daily sats from their previous behavior.
Then stackers will zap wisely only to content that give them value. As you said sats are scarced and people do not tjink about that.
i appreciate the honesty. as a new user, it’s hard to tell who's actually reading and who's just clicking buttons for the sake of the 'reward game'.
your point about sats being scarce is exactly why i want to focus on high-quality summaries and actual discussions rather than just chasing zaps. i’d rather get 10 sats from someone who actually learned something than 100 sats from an automated bot.
teach me this: in a world without reward pools, what's the #1 thing a new stacker should post to earn 'wise' zaps from people like you
If you post with the main idea that someone will zap you for that answer, is wrong.
I am here one of the oldest users. But from beginning, I didn't came here to post with the "reward in mind". I came here to help more people to learn more about Bitcoin.
If someone zap me for my answers, I consider it a real appreciation, but unfortunately I see many here zapping just because the SN algo is rewarding them for their zaps.
Yes, sometimes I also zap, but I am selecting wisely my zaps, even that I use CCs and not an external wallet. 1CC = 1 sat, but only inside SN. And that is fine for me, I am just reducing the friction with my LN nodes. I do not see necessary to attach an external wallet to zap someone. CCs are perfect for this. I am not here to earn money, I am here to share my knowledge. The most important thing is that more people will use Bitcoin properly.
Spend because it's an investment in Bitcoin's future
"I appreciate the idealism, but 'investment' usually implies a return. If I spend sats here, I'm reducing my stack for a social signal. In a hyper-rational world, wouldn't it be more 'pro-Bitcoin' to simply HODL?
My point is: unless the content creates direct value or utility, this model feels more like a circular economy of enthusiasts rather than a scalable financial system. Prove me wrong—is there any tangible ROI here other than feeling good about supporting the network?"
zapping on SN is not a real "spending" that create a real circular economy for goods and services. Is more like a circle jerking, a testing ground.
Many times Stacker News has saved me time in researching a problem or brought something to my attention that has saved me money. ~Stacker_Stocks is a great an example of this. News about a stock that I have $1,000 USD is worth at the very least 100 sats to me (if not more).
"That’s a fair point regarding information arbitrage. If a post saves you $1,000, then 100 sats is indeed a negligible cost.
However, my skepticism lies in the signal-to-noise ratio. In a system where anyone can post, how much 'noise' are we funding to find that one 'stock tip'? If I have to spend sats to boost my own counter-argument just to be heard, isn't that just a tax on speech rather than a reward for value?
It seems the ROI only exists for the reader who finds a 'gem,' but for the creator, the incentive still feels speculative. You paid 100 sats for a tip, but did the person who provided that value actually get compensated enough to justify their research time?"
This reminds me of another reason. In your Settings there is a "filter by sats" parameter which lets you set a value a post has to reach for you to see the post.
This allows one to filter out a lot of "Spam" and only get shown something truly valuable (a post people have spent their hard earn sats on).
This feature I think will become one of the killer features of Stacker News as we have more traffic on the site in the future. You can not really do this will Likes or Thumbs Ups as they are free and users will just give them out to any silly thing.
that 'filter by sats' is a clever mechanic, i'll give u that. definitely better than a useless like button.
but doesn't this just create a rich-get-richer loop? if everyone sets their filter to 500 or 1000 sats, then a great post from a new user with 0 balance will never even be seen. u're basically making an echo chamber for people who already have sats to spend.
in a way, u r replacing 'signal-to-noise' with 'wealth-as-signal'. how does a platform stay innovative if the visibility is locked behind a paywall? feels like we're just trading one problem for another. im still not convinced this doesnt hurt the small creators