Zapping is incredible. I get the warm fuzzies every time I see that someone sent me a few sats. But it's not the easiest thing to describe to people who don't know bitcoin and bitcoin culture.
I often find myself saying that zaps are tips, but tips are a loaded word and usually imply a larger amount than a few pennies or fractions thereof.
So what's the word (or words) you use to describe it?
I call it appreciation to value received
This is a pretty accurate description but doesn't really roll off the tongue.
But it reminds me of throwing some money in a street musician's hat and I like that image more than tipping a driver or Batista. The former is a gift, while the latter is a fee.
exactly this
a zap implies a different sort of relationship vs a tip. thanking someone for something with something of value vs a monetary grade on the quality of their work.
Yeah, tip isn't the right word.
But I'm looking for a single word or phrase I can use to describe this thing we are calling a zap. I think you are on to something with the idea of a thank you.
It's a tip, sort of, it's not, but it's close enough that the leyman could understand that. In the US tipping culture is very prevalent. It shouldn't be too hard to have people who are used to tipping wrap their heads around that concept.
Europe has in some places a more common tipping culture than others. I'd say mainland Europe it's more common than the UK. I can't comment on other areas of the worlds tipping habits as I'm not familiar with them.
But for me it's a simple question. Did you like what that person wrote? If yes -> tip/zap if no -> move along.
Value for value only works if people give value. And I mean both ways.
EDIT had a bit of a thought burst.
One of the problems is, it's a payment sort of. But you've already consumed the content. You don't have to zap to consume the content. Why pay for something you can have for free? Personally I feel it's a show of appreciation (like a tip, but I understand that that brings other connotations).
As mentioned further down by user @southside263 tip (at least to me) means gratuity, as in grateful. A tip is a thank you. It's a voluntary extra to show appreciation. (I do concede that in the US a tip isn't seen as voluntary).
Perhaps refering to zapping more like a gratuity might be more palatable language for some people?
Gratuity is getting there, I like this idea of gratitude, thank you. Something freely given. I would love to use gift, but that sounds weird to my ears.
gift is correct, it feels like we're running an information gift economy on SN with LN as the value layer
zapping is somewhat analogous to a gift. you wanted to recognize that person for the value they brought , so you zapped- they didn't necessarily do it for you specifically, their action was a gift as well.
there's no explicit agreement for future reward when they did what they did but bitcoin allows us to thank people with value that we don't personally know.
'zap' to me implies a gift of bitcoin, specifically to someone you may not know personally, perhaps only by their nym, in a non-business transaction.
'I zapped someone because the recipe they posted was really good' tells you that I don't personally know the person and the fact that I sent them bitcoin.
'gift' could mean literally anything and implies a more personal connection than you may actually have.
In the fan fiction world there is a pretty well developed concept of the gift economy. But it has a pretty strong anti-capitalist bent. So when I've spoken about zapping to fandom people, it hasn't gone too well.
Gift economy is accurate for what exists on nostr/SN - communities existing on a base layer that allows them to transmit value peer to peer.
where anti-capitalists might have a point is how the community tends to based around money (i.e., most people on nostr/SN are also bitcoiners, discussing finance etc) and are not necessarily in a dependence situation - they do not need to interact with the 'gift economy' to get the 'gift'(bitcoin).
using the fandom example, I can't necessarily get fan fiction from a cornerstore. it's not really a commodity in the same sense that say, a Gatorade is. I can't go and pay for a drink with it - but I could maybe trade my stories for someone willing to pay me with money to buy my drinks. I have to interact with whatever fandom I'm into to get my fix, and sometimes I might send someone money for things I desire to participate. having money isn't a hard requirement for participation, having what the fandom values is.
Bitcoin is many things -but it is also money-people may get hung upon this aspect and only see the fiat motivations as in the attention economy (see TikTok & their gifting of 'roses','galaxies'etc) vs the network of relationships being built via a knowledge gift market like nostr/SN.
Yeah I get what you're saying about it sounding weird, it's a cultural thing. Where I from tipping isn't required. You pay for what you asked for and if you want to leave a tip for the waiting staff/barista/whoever. You do that as extra, and it's quite a big gesture, it's not expected and it's a way of saying thank you to them for being good whilst hosting you.
But like I said above, in other cultures tipping is not only customary it is expected. So to me gratuity means exactly that, it is expressing gratitude via a financial reward.
Imagine if you got a penny for every upvote on Reddit
This is exactly the thing: anyone who has ever posted anything online can feel a little tingling at the idea that all those likes or upvotes or comments are worth a bit of money.
This is a killer use case, but I find that even trying yo talk about it to non-bitcoiners is often a dead end. They don't believe other people would actually zap or they don't think it could work with "real" money (who's actually using real money is an argument I have to bite my tongue on so as to stay on topic) or they ate stuck with the idea that a tip is $5 or $10 and 21 sats breaks their minds.
But you have encapsulated the vision here.
If they don't believe just send them over to stacker.news to see it in action 🤠
it's like a "LIKE" but with monetary value embedded to it
Bigger is the like/zap, more value the other party will receive
Yup this is how I will explain it: when someone LIKES your post, you get money along with approval
Money backed likes is good.
I'm hopeful that zaps becomes a word we can use just like likes.
It's just a form of online tipping
Online tipping is the phrase I use the most, but I've encountered a lot of people who think this means something like tipping waiters (in the US sense).
And online tipping like we do at SN is actually pretty rare. I think that's the trouble. Other than with video platforms like tiktok, twitch, only fans, there pretty much isn't any viable way to tip online. Also, the size of zaps is awesome. You just can't tip someone half a cent online.
Fair I agree
I call it "slices of bread", for a few reasons:
That's a pretty incredible story! There's nothing like buying something with SN sats. My wife was a tiny bit impressed when I bought esims with SN earnings.
I call it the perfect way to express emotions on Bitcoin Lightning platforms
Maybe zaps will enter the lexicon just like the term emojis.
Although zaps are really only positive emotions. Maybe with downzaps we can express a negative emotion, but it's a little fuzzy to me how they work.
I think I heard term "zonk" for this once. Or maybe it was just @Car and @k00b during one episode of SNL where they tried to come up with something better than "downzap".
Afaik, only SN has downzaps. We use these downzaps as a signal that you want to see less similar content by decreasing the trust to stackers who zapped this content before you.
Right, but do I as a poster/commenter see if I've been downzapped?
(Cue the crowds to come show me what a zonk looks like...)
No
Doesn't downzapping lead to posts being outlawed (which I understand to be your posts only show up in wild west mode)?
If so, it'd be neat to experiment with letting a user know that their post violated norms of some sort.
Ah, yes. But it needs to hit a global threshold.
There is no norm. It's just individual stackers telling us that they don't like this and want to see less content like this.
You'd have to ask these stackers why they downzapped it. But just like we don't show who zapped who, we also (especially) don't want to show who downzapped who.
So anything like this would have be opt-in. But I think when we allow attaching messages to zaps, we could also allow stackers to attach messages to downzaps—if they want.
I wasn't thinking anything so formal, merely the "norm" that if I post an ad for some shitcoin airdrop I will probably end up getting downzapped.
I think attaching notes to downzaps is probably a bad idea. But I think letting a user see that a post or comment has been downzapped and to what extent could provide useful feedback.
I agree there isn't any norm, but SN, like every community has a culture, and there is a fuzzy edge past which people might do a thing that breaches the norm. They don't necessarily need anyone to tell them this but could benefit from a numeric visual aid to show them they are heading toward the badlands.
Also, I think they should definitely be called zonks.
"instead of someone giving you a lame thumbs up icon.. they send you Bitcoin" 🙂
I explain how infeasible it is to get small tips online. It just doesn't work for plebs. Then I explain how when someone likes what I write they can send me a bit of bitcoin(sat). Then I tell them his much I have been given in the last 6 months. I tell them, imagine if artists adopted this. What if people could directly give value for value with no gatekeepers or middle men. Usually their interest is peaked.
This is often how I talk about bitcoin. Its true value as a censorship resistant money. An inflation proof form of money. A permission less network without borders.
This is much more interesting than look at the price.
Yeah, lightning is a game changer as it allows to move Bitcoin in real time and in tiny amounts.
Plus, it comes with heaps of cool stuff like authentication
Emphasis on no middle men is good. I often forget to bring that up.
Middle money instead of middle men.
(I might need to workshop that one a bit)
value4value⚡️
micro payments for content u enjoy
Micro-tipping is a term I've tried to use, but it's got tipping in it with all it's associations.
I like micro payments better.
Wiki:
The etymology for the synonym for tipping, "gratuity", dates back either to the 1520s, from "graciousness", from the French gratuité (14th century) or directly from Medieval Latin gratuitas, "free gift", probably from earlier Latin gratuitus, "free, freely given". The meaning "money given for favor or services" is first attested in the 1530s.
Before I wrote the original post, I went down the synonyms rabbithole. There are some great words:
Bonus, alms, tithe...heck even calling it tribute is kinda cool. But I think most people will get distracted if I say we're bringing tribute back on the world wide web.
I like the emphasis on freely given, though. Too bad tip seems to have lost most of those connotations.
“let me explain bro.
ZAPS are: ZAPS⚡️
got it. Cool.”
zaps are Internet bits of awesomeness
Definitely like this way of putting it. Kinda goes along with the magic internet money vibes! I'm going to use this.
A Proof-of-Work Like.
POWs?
"My post yesterday got a ton of pows."
(Also needs workshopping)
I call it boosting because I'm an RSS junkie.
Does boosting have a meaning in RSS outside podcasting 2.0/Fountain/bitcoin stuff?
no, but it essentially has the same meaning. To lift something up or push something forward. with money in this case.
It's like a never ending Christmas Day when you're a kid
Zaps: Instead of transferring your energy, your time, and your attention to a platform seeking to improve their advertising algorithms, you transfer energy directly to the author of the content you are reading at that moment. This reward and appreciation system has a positive effect on all participants. Zapping redistributes energy from the platform maintainers to the content creators and their readers and commenters.
Zaps b*tch slaps likes.
(ducks for cover)
Send satoshis on a fast Bitcoin network.
This is a great question to help break out and help with mass adoption.
Tipping does have a bad reputation.
Cannot wait to see what saying because the victor in the vocabulary.
Satoshis for your thoughts?
Magic tips in L2 or just a way of saying thanks to someone who brings you value 💕⚡
I describe it as if I am sending billions of dollars to someone. Just call it "billions of dollars."
Zaps are tips, but in bitcoin.
I’m OK with it being loaded. If they don’t take the time to understand the value of sats, then they probably don’t care what a zap is either.
Value for Value
zaps are zaps zaps can be loaded in future 10 satoshi may be able to buy u a decent car in 2030
you could explain that zaps are like sats on stacker news!
Tipping cents with digital money and explain this is superior to likes and other types of nonverbal feedback on the web.
I say I got zapped whatever number of sats today and then they ask how much that is and i say like 50 cents and they're like cool
It's like say thank you to random citizen, or be polite on the road with drivers next to you. Something that at first glance costs nothing however it gives some pleasure to people who get it
It will be cool when zapping becomes so mainstream that it is a new form of etiquette.
Zapping is the polite thing to do.
"Can you believe, he didn't even zap it after using my meme."
"She jumps in the comments and asks all those questions and didn't even zap when she got answers."
Time to get our manners game on.
https://m.stacker.news/12865