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Frankly speaking, if you were into SN just for the sats, you would find that it isn’t lucrative. Even if you garner 1000 sats for your post - a target that is fairly hard to attain - you can’t even buy a cup of coffee. So SN isn’t the place to be if you want to increase your income-earning potential.
Then why do Stackers post long posts and comments even if it isn’t the most financially rewarding? There could be many reasons: the drive to keep your cowboy hat, the feeling that you want to project some kind of sophisticated image, the cathartic effects of writing. But perhaps it all boils down to the ethos Bitcoiners hold dear.
It’s manifested in the way Stackers go the extra mile to orange pill merchants, hoping to release others from the shackles of fiat.
It’s manifested in the way you willingly invest the time and energy to run your own node, never mind that it may take years for it to become profitable.
It’s manifested in the way you organise info sessions and workshops, hoping to reach out to non-Bitcoiners and make them take the scary first step.
Things that are labour-intensive but don’t deter you because you frame it as a labour of love.
Labour of love.
And perhaps since this Labour of Love spirit is embedded within your ethos, it is second nature for you to demonstrate it here.
To expound on your experiences even though your comment won’t pay the bills.
To share your POV even though you are facing time pressures and sleep debt.
To run a territory at a loss because you value the conversations it generates.
Stacker News seems to demand a lot out of us than your typical social media platform. But you gleefully call this place home.
Yeehaw 🤠
Ultimately, I would like SN to make a non-negligible contribution to my family income. However, that view has evolved out of what a great substitute for other social media platforms SN turned out to be. I would happily talk to the stackers here for free (and I sort of do, since I don't withdraw sats), but I can justify spending more of my time here if it is something like a side hustle.
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How does a non-negligible contribution look like to you?
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I have a back of the envelope calculation that long-term I need to be making about 30,000 sats per day. That's factoring in where I think bitcoin's value is headed. So, whatever share of those 30,000 I can earn from Stacker News the better.
I've been treading water lately, but I also haven't put much effort into making high quality posts.
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You play on a different field haha. I’m aiming for 5000 sats per day, which already seems Herculean to me
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My guess is that the main difference is in how much farther short I fall of my goal than you do.
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I appreciate this love letter to SN. I would say that it points to the sacrifices people make to make this place what it it is, but "sacrifice" suggests there is some pain associated with it. It think people enjoy coming here to put their time in with much monetary gain. If sats weren't involved, it would look like a many other forums with small impassioned following, and the question of writing for pay wouldn't even come up.
There is something special about the sats though.
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There is something special about the sats though.
I'm very new here so this is said without much experience but my understanding so far is that the sats make you consider more before you comment (because there's a cost to comment, even if trivial), but also and probably more importantly, there is a cost to promote ('upvote') which is proportional to the amount of promotion. This is important because it doesn't reward 'lowest common denominator' appeal or groupthink nearly so much as we see on places like reddit. And on reddit, it used to be common to see ppl say "I wish I could upvote this more than once" to a comment or post they thought particularly valuable. On SN, you can upvote 'more than once' but at proportional cost.
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Welcome!
The longer I spend here, the more I realise that the sats I give out will bounce back to me - like a boomerang 🪃 . Stackers are generous and believe in reciprocal giving
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A bill payment platform recently announced a collaboration with a crypto payment platform to allow citizens to pay for their bills with Bitcoin!
Your last sentence made me download the bill payment platform app. It probably doesn’t support the LN network yet, but I can always hope lol
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128 sats \ 4 replies \ @AJ1992 2 Feb
I like pissing off all you Bitcoin maxi's and far right extremists tbh. That's what makes it fun for me.
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Appreciate how you bring different vibes to the sub haha
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @joda 2 Feb
You watch your mouth or we'll get Darth in here!
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can't escape the cults, no matter what. they are everywhere.
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I'm not scared of the dark side, because I AM the dark side. Hail Satan, bitches.
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237 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 2 Feb
SN definitely cost me some sats (now it's 100k monthly for ~retrogaming...), but it's been great!
The posts are a really high signal, there are not many other sources like that...
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Unfortunately I’m not a gamer, so I can’t support you haha. I zapped you more than my usual, hope it brings a smile to your face
Any new things you learnt about your passion after founding your territory?
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I am here to learn and to share. Zapping sats are a big improvement to the notion of likes and upvotes on other social platforms - and I think it generally increases the quality of content. That being said, I do not expect the sats to make a material impact on my finances.
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I agree. I treat the sats here as a fun source of extra income
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Stacker news is awesome. The amount of development going into it is very impressive
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I'm not operating at a loss. I fully expect the sats I earn here to be an very good wage for the time I put into writing, posting, zapping, and commenting.
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Amen
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It kinda reminds me a little bit of the Web v1.0, when not everything was about making money.
Nowadays everything is marketed, sold, etc.
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BULLISH ON THE LABOUR OF LOVE
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First of all SN doesn't have much spam post, community is close circled and I think its rewards more or equal than any other platform. Only one thing is as I am not a developer, I wanted more jobs in other fields.
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I just think it's cool and not all drama, nonsense, and censorship. It's like a big search engine where the engine is users. Ask a question get an answer, have a nice discussion. No ads in your face, no porn in the feed. No lies about fake pandemics and wars. GOOD STUFF.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @gmd 2 Feb
I’m here to spend more sats than I make and help stimulate the economy here. Unfortunately it’s hard because rewards are so generous.
I just love upvoting with sats I’m sticking around until SN eats reddit
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Because just like HN, SN is a historical record of these times. Once written and past timeout, posts are immutable (but deletable), and will go on to train orange flavored LLMs in the future.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @KLT 2 Feb
I would MUCH rather post here than on Twitter / FB / IG!
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I love getting and sending sats everyday even if it's just a small amount. There is something to it beyond a monetary gain/loss. It's the feeling of being self-sovereign, using a network to transmit value without any censorship or intermediaries. I even enjoy sending sats between my own wallets.
I like to value the things I read or write in sats, because it's much more valuable to me than likes. And I don't think about their cost in fiat money. I just say to myself that someday, maybe one sat will be equal to one dollar, and people will talk about how we used to exchange sats like psychopaths. Just like the guy who spent 10k bitcoins to pay for a pizza some years ago...
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I can't explain what it is but SN has it.
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Yay your pose made over 1,000 sats! You did it!!
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