This topic seems to interest me more than most people, but we're seeing an fascinating example of price formation with the amounts people are zapping each other. When I started using Stacker News, it was very common to see 1 sat tips. That's now rare and has been replaced by much higher default amounts (often 21 for its symbolic value).

I noticed that I was consistently earning more sats than I was spending, so I raised my default zap by an order of magnitude. The result? I just made more sats for being one of the top zappers every day. Obviously, there are some bounds on this feedback loop.

I decided to try a new experiment where every day I set my default zap at a fixed proportion of what's in my SN wallet. This should allow me to eventually settle in near an equilibrium around my optimal zap amount.

I suspect that most of you are still zapping less than is even in your own best interest. It's time to raise those default values again.