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It's a pretty big stretch to equivocate these two things. One is fundamentally incorporating economic incentives while the other is intentionally ignoring them.
The two situations are totally different, imo.
First, Stacker News derives no revenue from tips anyway. It makes money from selling territory rights.
So, comparing the restaurant to Stacker News is wrong.
It makes more sense to compare the restaurant to an individual poster on Stacker News. But there are two huge differences.
Posters on Stacker News have very little fixed cost, and low or even negative marginal costs since we post not just to earn sats but also for our own entertainment. Posting on Stacker News is pretty sustainable even for someone who makes few sats. That's not like a restaurant at all, which has large fixed costs and significant marginal costs.
I agree about the fixed costs and was going to mention them. A restaurant has bills and wages to pay.
I do too, but when I post on SN, that doesn't raise my internet or electric bill and it's more fun than work.
I thought SN received 1/3 of the tips, but they were distributed somehow?
Also, on SN there are incentives to zap. When I zapped a lot and the content was zapped by others, I'd get some distributions.
And when you post, you get recognition and can start building a brand e.g. as a blogger.
I thought SN received 1/3 of the tips, but they were distributed somehow?
What he meant was that SN derives no direct revenue from zapping. All of those sats get paid out as rewards.
The content providers on SNs are those who put up content.
They are rewarded via V4V principles and if other participants do not abide by V4V principles and simply consume content without zapping content providers are insufficiently compensated for their efforts and the whole model gradually dies.
This has not been working well as territory owners have rarely ever achieved sufficient income to pay for the cost of buying or renting territories.
Both the restaurant and SNs depend ultimately upon the altruism of participants to ever achieve economic viability.
How so?
Someone can come on SNs and virtually pay close to zero by simply consuming news and views just as someone can go to a pay as you choose restaurant and pay nothing and eat as much as they like.
Both models are V4V and both rely upon enough participants to operate in an altruistic manner for the business model to be self sustaining economically.
SNs has never achieved economic self sustainability free of sponsorship- looks like the 'Communist' restaurant did for quite some time.
A V4V restaurant is clearly an intentional experiment also- one where you are testing the altruistic capacity of your local community to enable food for everyone regardless of their wealth.
Stacker News does the same in an online environment and as a social media platform rather than a restaurant but is still ultimately dependent upon the altruism of participants to gain economic viability- which it appears to not have ever achieved, yet, being still largely reliant upon a benefactor funding its existence up till now.
These experiments are of value, imo, and clearly the restaurant operated for several years before closing.
Such experiments usually rely upon the voluntary work and enthusiasm of the community.