Heh, it’s not a healthy or sustainable model for the types of communities consciously we build for. Definitely not something we would consider building into core but you could make it work with a plugin. Extrinsic motivators attract the wrong people for the wrong reasons, in my experience.
Healthy community ecosystems are driven by intrinsic motivation.
Let's discuss.
Il go first and I disagree with this whoever he is!
Sats are enough for motivation.
If you think you need more than the sats, I'm ready for a brawl 😜
I'd also like to add that there's no community ecosystem that doesn't run on extrinsic motivation for creators.
Or in other words there's no community ecosystem that can sustain entirely on intrisinic motivation for creators.
Is there any?
This is a cool find! I posted about SN on the Discourse Meta board this summer, but it didn't occur to me to search for earlier posts! And this is from 2024!
Interesting to see that HAWK's response is the same as it was this summer.
Do you think, though, that the sats one earns on SN will ever be a meaningful return on the amount of time you put into writing?
Thanks!
Yes I do. Sats are primary on SN. Why? Because if we scrap sats (a BCE concept in broader terms) from SN, what else will make it different from reddit or others?
Yes, there are many other things that also motivate me to stay part of the community.
I agree with you that sats are core to what SN is and what it has to offer.
I disagree however that it will ever really provide meaningful income (unless we count relying on price appreciation to reach meaningful income).
This foes back to Darth's observation that paying to post is a more important innovation than creating a way for posters to get zapped.
The fact that using SN has a cost is more important than the fact that you can earn sats here.
What do you think?
Here's the confession: what I earn/earned on SN has been more than the per capita income in India.
And If I consider the price appreciation, it was like twice the per capita income when ay peak.
But tbh I don't care about fiat appreciation, all I care is how much I could be worth in Sats or Bitcoin terms..
SN has a cost in Bitcoin/Sats. What would it be like if you have this but don't have zapping enabled?? How many would pay to post??
That's impressive! Zapping clearly plays a role and I agree that SN doesn't work without it. It's important enough that Stacker is in the name. But your question about how many would pay to post is fair. It might be more than we know. However, people aren't used to the idea of paying to post online and so likely would not be excited about it.
Also: do you have any ideas how we could promote SN in India? Seems like if stackers there can earn more than per capita income, it might be interesting to them.
Thanks, Scoresby.
Before answering your question, I’d like to clear up a few things.
I did promote SN in India before, and many people joined, participated and contributed. What some people disliked was that we used to zap each other heavily. We were friends before SN, and I encouraged them to zap good content early. They also earned sats from the rewards, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault.
Things then became toxic. Some prominent stackers started a hate campaign against our Indian group, including nude and disturbing memes. There were also accusations that I was running multiple accounts.
To be absolutely clear: @Golu is my brother, @Athena is my sister, @reportercoins is my own separate account, @TheMorningStar is someone I orange-pilled at a training, @BitcoinAbhi is my cousin, and @IamSINGLE is my niece.
The other accounts people associated with me like @desertdave, @Imyourfed, @Solomonsatoshi, @Aardvark, and others I don’t even remember. I didn’t know those people, their countries, or anything about them.
What hurt most was seeing very little pushback against the abuse. It made me hesitant to bring new people, especially women, onto SN. I eventually told my sister and niece not to post or read there.
But I still believe India is a huge opportunity for SN. We just need to educate people about Lightning first. That shouldn’t be difficult given Indians already use UPI every day. Lightning offers a similar experience, but with Bitcoin instead of centralized fiat rails.
There are also huge communities of Indians interested in Bitcoin on platforms like Quora. I had already started spreading the word about SN there, and I even planned to promote it during a motorcycle ride across India.
I’m not completely broken by what happened. I’ll give it another shot and very soon. I love stacker news and I want it flourish as much as anyone wants.
That's quite amazing, honestly. Hats off to you. I think I should include this quote in my paper.
Thanks.
I think one big reason why I could say this is because India is one of the best countries in these times in terms of affordability. Almost everything seems cheapest here in comparison to anywhere in the world. I may sound bias but truly India is doing exceptionally well in self sustainability as well. In addition to that only 2-3% people have to pay taxes. Labour and national logistics are both cheap. The joint family tradition also plays a big role in it where all work and support each other in the family financially. In short I don't have to worry about working my ass off to pay my bills.
Can you imagine I pay about $35 yearly to get unlimited 5g wifi + calling + subscription to my whole house?? Where else is it possible??
Yes luxury is a bit costly here. I bought iphone 17 pro max 3 months ago and it cost me about $400 more than what it costs to an American. But I think luxury isn't necessary.
Saw your post on Meta - good find linking it here. Curious what was the reaction over there? Did they get the sats filter part?
I think sats are enough motivation to try out SN but they can't be the only reason stay.
Exactly. Sats get you in the door, the brawls keep you here. You stay for the signal, not just the sats.
I have had very few brawls on SN in almost 4 years now.
True though — as a musician from Nigeria doing Value4Value on Wavlake, I see both sides.
Sats first brought me in, but if it was ONLY sats, I would have left. What kept me? Someone zapped my song 100 sats and wrote "this healed my day". That comment is worth more than the sats.
So sats open the door, but human signal locks you in. You can't plugin that feeling.
What do you have with @Undisciplined almost daily??
Ohh that's love brawl!!
A little friendly trash talk never hurt anyone.
Yeah that's true.
However undisciplined will be weeping when 'merica will lose ....BYABIIIIIGMARGON.
This year's USA vs The World has been a big blow to his ego. Good thing his Raiders look promising.
Yeah 😂😂
The raiders!!
OMG I'm bullish on them..
Undisciplined says I'll be a hero in Vegas for buying million shares of them.
Respect. 4 years almost no brawls is the goal. Means you learned how sats filter. What's your trick for staying out of them?
No trick really. I like and respect almost everyone on SN and I mute persistent shit disturbers.
This is where they get it wrong. On Reddit/Discourse, upvotes ARE extrinsic - just empty dopamine.
On Stacker News sats are NOT extrinsic. Sats are value, time and energy, skin in the game. You pay to post, you earn when you add signal. That's intrinsic for a Bitcoiner.
That's why their plugin theory fails and SN works. Sats don't attract the wrong people, they filter them.
NVK?
I don't know. Maybe 🤔
Problems are truly solved by talking to each other, and when it comes to a community, that's the best way: to listen to proposals and choose the best one together, not to make a decision by just one person, quite the opposite.
Scoresby has a thing or two to say about that
IMO it's people speaking from intuition, but not necessarily super well thought out.
Any ecosystem that gets popular is going to have extrinsic motivations. SN is at least pretty explicit about part of it.
And, from the pure spam filter point of view, posting cost just works.