Guys, I don't think territories are worth 100K sats per month. Maybe this is similar to how monkey-jpeg buyers feel. There is basically no tools to do anything cool; unless I put in time on top of the 100K to build. In 2024, I don't have that spare capacity. The 100K basically lets other people have the luxury of muting the posts. That's the only real economic benefit. There is no way to create a moat at all.
I think I've made like 8K total off of the revenue for 2 months.
I have to renew on the 5th. I'll cover 50K sats, if other folks want to kick in the other 50K. If you leave a comment with a unique # of sats, then zap me directly (not the post) that unique number of sats, then I'd be able to refund you if I don't get 50K in aggregate.
393 sats \ 4 replies \ @freetx 4 Feb
I think territories should be priced on a 2-3% diminishing monthly rate. So 100k first month, 97000 second, 94000 third, etc etc.
This solves several problems:
  1. sets an initial "high bar" to help SN make money and discourage flood of meaningless territories
  2. deflationary. keeps territory prices in line with btc growth (100K sats in future may be $10,000 USD!)
  3. keep territory owner incentivized to pay another month (hey its getting cheaper each month)
  4. what happens if I pay 3M to buy something like "photos"...run it for awhile and then get hit by a bus.....is that territory now just dead also? where does money go? who runs / owns it?....selling territories leads to all sorts of future problems for SN that hasn't been thought thru. Just rent them at a more reasonable rate.
Frankly I would do away with the 1M and 3M sat options and just move to this diminishing rate model since it would always provide some recurring revenue into SN...but by say year 4 or 5 the monthly fee would be only around 20k for renter....so this optimizes for long-term investment.
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What if territories were free to create, and they just worked sort of like tags, or it costed like 100 sats for each tag you used.
The real issue is moderation imo. If there was a way for stackers to annoint people to mods and if the annointeds actions was transparent, you could have a succesful decentralized moderation force it seems
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This just turns the current constant, into a formula which returns a constant. It would have the same problems as today, imho.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @freetx 4 Feb
As price of BTC rises, zapping is going to go down....So its certain SN will need to lower prices.
Suppose BTC hits 500K USD....do you think anyone is going to pay $500 USD per month for a territory? When gross zapping is even lower than it is now?
My point is there needs to a way to build in future deflation into the model. Otherwise its simply not going to work.
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I think we're both correct. About two different points. :)
I see what you mean.
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This is an interesting optimization problem. Imo there are too many territories already, which suggests that 100k is too little. On the other hand, it doesn't seem profitable to own a territory, even for one of the most requested tags, "econ".
Maybe we're still just too early to say anything and "price discovery" is still happening. I imagine the cost to own a territory will be revised quite soon, and personally I think they should be distributed via more of an auction like system.
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I don't see it as an optimization problem. It's a price discovery one. Two variables are locked right now, 100K + 10%. Both of those should be allowed to float.
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29k today, let me know how short you are on the 5th.
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Thank kind sir! You already had a claim on future co-owner, this seals the deal, imho. We'll figure it out...when/if the tools emerge.
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There's a win-win on the table if you let us zap the 50k to this post. Either you'll get a big reward for top post or we'll get big rewards for top post zapping.
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285 sats \ 0 replies \ @jeff OP 4 Feb
Update: I'll count all sats from the top post and any of my comments in it towards the 50K.
Zap away. I'm not blocking it. I just, didn't want to screw up the SN algorithm.
I just, would feel like crap, if somebody sent me 25K sats, and I couldn't refund them cause I didn't know where it came from.
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196 sats \ 5 replies \ @kr 4 Feb
if you were in charge would you roll back the functionality that allows people to mute territories?
curious to know what other cool tools you’d like to see built for territory owners.
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would you roll back the functionality
No, not at all.
But if you really think about it; if you want to see ~econ in your feed, does the tag on the content really help that much? You're just gonna see the title of the post, and be like "Oh, cool...maybe I read this". It doesn't likely change the outcome of what you read. So, the tag, really only helps the people who don't want to see the territory content OR I suppose, people who want EXCLUSIVELY that territory's content. Which, is probably a rare way to browse SN.
curious to know what other cool tools

WAAAAY more control over zap flow

Stay with me here, the first sentence in the next paragraph is going to be jarring. But, if you think about it for a split second, my suggestion is step towards less centralization. As it stands right now, SN has a claim on 100% of zaps, and they've decided subjectively to set the split at 90-10 universally, and we trust them to forward it on according to those terms. But I see this like a centralized federal government declaring numbers for states. It works for some, but not others.
Territory owners should get a claim on 100% of the sats from any post and any comment in the territory. Then, the territory owner(s) should get to set a call-back URL, which is hit for every post, comment, and zap event, which gets the full context of the event, and then returns an object which represents the weights of where any zaps should go for that event. A protocol.
The territory owners would be able to set logic such as:
  1. Posters get 50% of the first 1000 sats, territory gets the other 50%, but poster gets 99% of anything higher, territory keeps the 1%.
  2. 13th day of the month, all zaps go to charity.
  3. Posters who are in the top ten, get 95% of zaps, else, you get 80%, balance goes to territory.
  4. Territory treasury gets 5% of all zaps. Territory can do their own games with this pile.
  5. Split revenue for 15 days across these specific names proportional to specific weights.
  6. A dice-roll on every zap, determines the split.
This 90-10 split is a subjective constant chosen by SN, which makes for a market-clearing number under certain conditions. If I had made 200K sats from the 10% rake, I'm 10000% sure, that I would lower the split cause if I didn't, ~econ2 would pop up. Conversely, it makes no sense to spend 100K to get 5K in "revenue". SN needs to 20x before we're looking anywhere near breaking event at the 100K.

Data

Just, lots more info about whats going on in the territory.

Tagging + API

Would like to be able to add value, by auto-tagging, programmatically, via after-the fact API.
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It's fitting that the economics of territories emerge from the ~econ territory!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 4 Feb
some really interesting ideas in here, thanks for the great feedback
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527 sats \ 1 reply \ @Car 4 Feb
No, I suspect nesting the territories beforehand could have negated this problem. This was my issue when "mute" was added. It was choosing the stackers over the territory owners, which was an unfortunate circumstance.
Here are my thoughts and some helpful advice:

Some helpful advice:

I like the idea of a Cowboy-only mode option where you only see the territories you want. But all should be on by default. It should be as easy as flipping from dark mode to light mode.
Once this turns red, you see it in Cowboy-only mode. Flip it off, and you see everything. Kinda like "They Live."
This way, you only get this 'mute" option if you maintain your Cowboy hat.

Some thoughts:

Right now, it does seem SN is trying to please too many stackers and the territory owners at the same time, and it will have to make a choice of what/who to build for first. Not an easy task.

More helpful advice:

The Cowboy-only mode option fixes a lot of things at once. It sets a precedent that only the ride-or-die stackers get real respect, and the territory owners get more people visiting. Now, this theory only holds true if there are more stackers without cowboy hats than there are with. Also, the Cowboy-only mode option could do other cool things as well, and things to add to it over time.
👋 Also, I want to say that regardless, I am here as a territory owner to figure this out with ya'll; I love the experimentation. This has literally never been done before, so yes these are just growing pains.
💫 Great spot to be in.
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @jeff OP 4 Feb
...it will have to make a choice of what/who to build for first. Not an easy task.
SN should work for territory owners. Full stop. Their missiom should be to make the territory owners successful economically.
I am here as a territory owner to figure this out with ya'll; I love the experimentation.
Same. Same here. Trying.
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i own ~news and the number of new posts has dropped off a lot the past month.
it cost 100k/month and I make maybe 2-3k/month off it...not at all sustainable.
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100 sats \ 2 replies \ @gmd 4 Feb
Do territories need to make profit? Surely there are some bitcoiners who got in before I did (at the top lol) who can afford to float a territories without needing to make sats.
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yeah. what's the point then?
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100 sats \ 0 replies \ @gmd 4 Feb
To own a cool community of stackers that supports SN? It was clear after the initial surge of territories that the numbers would fall... keeping price high keeps a nice filter for the territories/founders who really want them.
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When you say you make 2-3k/month off it, do you mean you make 102-103k per month (so your 100K is covered) or that the territory is costing you 97-98k per month?
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no. i earn 2-3k and cost is 100k
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I thought that's what you meant. So it's costing you 98k sats to run
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11 sats \ 20 replies \ @anon 4 Feb
People are realizing what I realized from day one: territories were a mistake.

The 100K basically lets other people have the luxury of muting the posts.
I said it from the beginning: territories would turn owners into mini-dictators. No user should've muting powers. For example, why would I risk posting Bitcoin related content on any other territory besides ~bitcoin and have it get silenced by some power-hungry mod? You all aren't thinking this through longterm.
Territories = controled by humans = centralization of power = censorship and abuse.
Territories are the oposite of what Bitcoin and Nostr stands for.

SN should work for territory owners. Full stop. Their missiom should be to make the territory owners successful economically.
I just saw your comment above. You're wrong. Users should always come first, before anything else. Your territory's success is based on what users post and how they engage with content... it's not about you, and no territory tools will ever change that.
You are naive to think that increasing post costs OR increasing the "tax" on the zaps from other users will solve anything.

There are already too many territories, and if you make them cheaper, it'll only get worse. If they remain at 100K sats, owners will give up on them after a few months.
The issue isn't with you, @jeff, or your territory, or the price. It's the concept of territories as a whole that needs reconsideration. What we really needed was tags or something in between.

Stacker News no longer feels like a platform for stackers or bitcoin-related news. It feels like a wanna-be Reddit. I still enjoy it tho, but it's not what it used to be, and users have left because of that.
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I hear you, but you should add the implications from...
SN = controlled by humans
...then reflect.
Users should always come first, before anything else.
I guess we'll have to disagree here. I think customers should come first. Lots of other places online pander to users, but really serve the customers - eg. advertisers.
In my mind...
  • SN == Shopify
  • Territory Owner == E-commerce store owner
Make a platform for other people to make money, and SN will do just fine.
Edit: To be clear; I'm not saying don't care about users, I'm saying take care of the territory owners, and the territory owners will take care of the users. There is a tiny asterisk, that SN needs to empower the territory owners to do a good job.
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16 sats \ 18 replies \ @anon 4 Feb
Stacker.news is a centralized platform controlled by two guys (i think?) - @k00b and @ekzyis.
While the people in charge are trustworthy, there's always a risk. Your content is stored on their servers, you can't self-host the frontend, they have access to the logs and all your wallet activity behind the scenes, including DMs. So you have to trust them completely.
On top of that, this whole thing could shut down or face censorship in the future if it gets too big. It already blocks IPs from certain countrys. This is not the Bitcoiner way of doing things.
The future lies in Nostr, hopefuly the team understands that. Right now, SN seems to be trying to compete with both Reddit and Nostr, at the same time. It's unclear to me why this whole thing can't just be a Nostr client instead.
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369 sats \ 14 replies \ @ek 4 Feb
It's unclear to me why this whole thing can't just be a Nostr client instead.
SN contains a ranking algorithm which is based on a web of trust model. To make this work efficiently, all items would need to be stored in the same database. Sorting and ranking content in a decentralized manner is not trivial. To sort something efficiently, you need access to all the content in one place. So just to have personalized/algorithmic feeds, we would need to build a "mega-relay". Additionally, relays on nostr don't federate anyway. So in the end, it doesn't make sense to build on top of nostr if you end up as a centralized database anyway.
Yes, there is "trending" on nostr, but that's something different. Afaik, that isn't personalized. This is just fetching event metrics. To have personalized feeds on nostr, you need to follow people. That's not the case on SN. We use your zaps to rank the content that other people zapped before you higher (the aforementioned web of trust model).
Other reasons:
  • nostr has edits only for NIP-23 which doesn't seem to show on clients like Primal and Snort
  • nostr has no reliable deletes so events must be kept in the "SN relay" to make deletes reliable -> centralized database required
  • SN has a custodial wallet to make onboarding very easy -> centralized database required to store user balances.
  • daily rewards go to top SN users -> centralized database required to keep track of users
  • daily rewards include post and zap fees -> centralized database required to keep track of fees
  • we don't have time to discuss our ideas for SN in NIPs like here so we wouldn't be spec compliant anyway
Also, as mentioned by @supertestnet here: What even is the definition of a "nostr client"?
We can read and write notes. So maybe SN already counts as a nostr client?
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I think I can summarize the issues in the way of SN becoming a "full" nostr client:
  1. web of trust
  2. edits
  3. deletes
  4. wallets
  5. rewards
  6. fees
  7. specs
#1 seems like something that can be done client side. You say you need a big database of all content in order to sort it properly, but I don't think it's true. Each user's web of trust can be based on their own follow lists and the people their follows follow. They don't have to all be identical. You don't need a "mega relay" for this -- just follow lists, which are already very popular on nostr.
#2 and #3 have nostr specs and your client could implement them. Other people might view deleted notes and "pre-edit" notes in a separate app but I don't think you're saying "that's" a problem. (Are you?) Because they can do that on stacker news already and there's not really anything you can do to stop it. I hope you guys aren't operating under the assumption that anything you delete from your site is gone forever.
#4 seems like you have a roadmap for this. If SN is serious about moving toward full self custody then this won't be an issue once you do. Any wallet that can be connected to or built into stacker news can be connected to or built into a full nostr client too.
#5 seems combined with #6. If you had a way to collect fees, do you think it would be easy or hard to distribute rewards to the most engaging nostr users via zaps? It sounds easy but maybe I'm missing something.
#6 is something I've talked with Keyan about. I think he he knows how to collect fees on lightning using "wrapped invoices" in a similar manner to how Geyser does it. It does require users to "opt in" to sending some money toward the reward distributor, but people "opt in" to using Stacker News too so it sounds doable.
#7 is a strange objection to me, part of the point of nostr is that all specs other than #1 are optional. If you want to do something that isn't in the specs, or violates a nip (other than #1), just do it, and maybe it will become a spec if other people want to do it too and ask you how you did it. (That's how zaps started btw. I implemented tipping in anigma before there was a spec for it, and then Will wanted to do the same thing so he just copied what I did, and then he added receipts and renamed tips as zaps.)
In summary, I think all of the issues you identify as standing in the way of SN becoming a full fledged nostr client are solvable. I hope it continues to progress in the direction of full nostr integration.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 4 Feb
#1 seems like something that can be done client side. You say you need a big database of all content in order to sort it properly, but I don't think it's true. Each user's web of trust can be based on their own follow lists and the people their follows follow. They don't have to all be identical. You don't need a "mega relay" for this -- just follow lists, which are already very popular on nostr.
We don't want follow lists for this to work though. We use zaps and trust to rank content. The ranking we use is something that is created while you use the product by the product and not something you maintain yourself. So this zap data must be stored somewhere, no?
Algorithmic feeds in general seem to require a lot of content and a dedicated source of truth to work properly at some point. For example, @k00b mentioned "oldest events first" or "search" in the ticket:
I agree with the fat client ideal. However, one of the most naive algorithms I listed is technically infeasible to perform on a client as is, e.g. oldest events first. A case can be made for not needing many of those algorithms and that perhaps many of the algorithms people actually want can, in fact, be conveniently provided by clients.
But, to steelman myself, some algorithms people want do require a relay-sized (or even network-sized) amount of data, e.g. search. Assuming clients don't want to download a relay's worth of data, what should we do instead?
I thought running search on relays using a standardized search algo which clients "combine" or "reduce" was the next best decentralizing thing. If I haven't misunderstood this thread, the more experienced nostratis disagree:
  1. standardization on relays (more than that which already exists) is centralizing
  2. "mega-relays," relays that attempt to store and index all of the network's data, will fail or otherwise be neutral in their centralizing effect
  3. relay diversity on things like search once it emerges (or gains more adoption if it has already emerged) will be maximally decentralizing

#2 and #3 have nostr specs and your client could implement them. Other people might view deleted notes and "pre-edit" notes in a separate app but I don't think you're saying "that's" a problem. (Are you?) Because they can do that on stacker news already and there's not really anything you can do to stop it. I hope you guys aren't operating under the assumption that anything you delete from your site is gone forever.
It's not a problem that we can solve 100% ("the internet never forgets") but it's a different mode of operation.1
Imo, it's a difference if you have to delete something in one place to make sure that it's deleted in "most cases" or if distribution of content is built into the protocol that is used to create content. We can argue about web crawlers indexing content, malicious actors saving all content for their own purposes and if that happens in most cases or not but maybe it boils down to this:
If I post something on nostr, some clients don't even allow me to attempt to delete the note.2 It's not very transparent how it works. On SN, it's transparent: You click "delete", we delete it in our centralized database. Everything else is subject to how the internet works. On nostr, there are more layers to this problem. More layers, less control.
However, "no reliable deletes on nostr" is definitely not a good argument to not be a nostr client, I agree.3 But imo, it's still an argument one could make together with other arguments.

#4 seems like you have a roadmap for this. If SN is serious about moving toward full self custody then this won't be an issue once you do. Any wallet that can be connected to or built into stacker news can be connected to or built into a full nostr client too.
#5 seems combined with #6. If you had a way to collect fees, do you think it would be easy or hard to distribute rewards to the most engaging nostr users via zaps? It sounds easy but maybe I'm missing something.
#6 is something I've talked with Keyan about. I think he he knows how to collect fees on lightning using "wrapped invoices" in a similar manner to how Geyser does it. It does require users to "opt in" to sending some money toward the reward distributor, but people "opt in" to using Stacker News too so it sounds doable.
You're right, #4, #5 and #6 are most likely solvable and we're actively working on solving them in a way that is more compatible with something like nostr. They fall into the category of me not explaining myself well in my initial reply. It's mostly about it being a lot easier at our stage to do it the centralized way first (like we did and are doing) than building SN on nostr (like we tried) while we're still figuring things out as we go.

#7 is a strange objection to me, part of the point of nostr is that all specs other than #1 are optional. If you want to do something that isn't in the specs, or violates a nip (other than #1), just do it, and maybe it will become a spec if other people want to do it too and ask you how you did it. (That's how zaps started btw. I implemented tipping in anigma before there was a spec for it, and then Will wanted to do the same thing so he just copied what I did, and then he added receipts and renamed tips as zaps.)
With #7, I wanted to say that we would probably not focus on spec compliance so if someone expects that we make sure that we don't build something that will never be a NIP when they talk about "SN as a nostr client", they would be disappointed.
So maybe it comes down to the question of what is meant exactly with "nostr client" or "full fledged nostr client"?
If SN being a "nostr client" means that it's actually a fat client built on top of a fat relay that people can't just spin up themselves, is it still what people mean with "SN as a nostr client"? I don't think so. There would still be a centralized database due to SN prioritizing UX over "being a nostr client".4
In summary, I think all of the issues you identify as standing in the way of SN becoming a full fledged nostr client are solvable.
I hope it continues to progress in the direction of full nostr integration.
I could ask again what "full nostr integration" is but I will leave it there :)
We will continue to integrate nostr where it makes sense. And I think there is much to gain from the nostr ecosystem since I am a big fan of open protocols.
However, it's probably more important to know exactly what users want. Maybe we won't need nostr for that, maybe we will.

Footnotes

  1. There is discussion regarding this topic all over SN. Here is one example: #361063
  2. Maybe I am just ignorant and dumb and it's only supposed to work for some event kinds (if so, why?).
  3. For example, I just quoted your content to format my reply and now it's already out of your control. Or on nostr, you could just only write to relays that you trust to respect deletes.
  4. UX is our main selling point imo.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @anon 5 Feb
Nostr already has clients for long-form content (Habla.news and Yakihonne), but their UI/UX sucks ass compared to SN.
Someone just needs to slap a SN skin on them, improve the comments feature, add ezy zapping icons like on SN, and a proper home page to find new posts.
Stacker.news can and MUST become a nostr client. Decentralization is the only path for the future. Centralized servers that have to obey laws and IP ban users based on their country are not the way forward. I'm not hating on SN btw, I love this platform!
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 5 Feb
To be clear, we only geofenced the custodial wallet. When we aren't custodians anymore we'll remove the geofence.
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 4 Feb
Just to help establish the current facts ...
They don't have to all be identical
They don't and ours aren't.
just follow lists, which are already very popular on nostr.
That's not the way we build our web of trust. We look at a person's entire zap history and compare it to everyone else's. A web of trust based on follow lists can be called a web of trust, but the resulting web is not the same as ours.

The problem with #1 isn't that it's impossible. It's that it takes a long time to gather and compute scores for events and to gather relevant events and re-order events.
This kind of thing will be remedied somewhat by clients storing more historical data in clientside relays or things like nostrdb but Primal is still going to serve the current version of your feed faster (because they built it while you were offline) and Nostr Band is going to perform thorough searches more quickly (because they gathered all the data while you were offline).

I'll be more optimistic that this is remotely as easy to do as all The Sayers say it is when clients stops using megarelays to provide algorithms and search.
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Solvable and affordable are different things.
You'll need to add hosting cost, and development costs.
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Sorting and ranking content in a decentralized manner is not trivial.
correct, why not just running a relay instead of maintaining a db?
It's unclear to me why you keep coming back to talk about how SN sucks and the vision is misguided and it's an inferior solution to these other products.
I mean, you're free to spend your time however you want. But increasingly feels like a lady doth protest too much kind of deal.
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452 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 5 Feb
Not sure where that came from. I never said that SN sucks. Disagreeing with the team on certain topics (like the Territories feature) or giving negative feedback doesn't mean I hate this platform. I've been a member here for a long time, longer than you have, and I've always loved SN and will continue to support it, even though I don't use it as much anymore.
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104 sats \ 0 replies \ @jeff OP 4 Feb
I don't think it can be a nostr client because of the economics required to build it.
It takes material time, and resources, and risk, to build something like SN.
If it was "just a nostr client", their moat would be lower, their cost of capital would be higher, and therefore wouldn't be able to hire the talent required to build it in the first place.
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Take my 100 sats
In the future I'll tell my heirs how I invester to economics in 2024
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Thanks mate!
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Huh, I didn't know you had to pay for territories, seems like the incentives are backwards. Why would anybody pay the owners of this site to build a community and publish content that generates traffic? Seems like people should get paid for that kind of effort instead.
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I like your idea of crowdsourcing some or all of the 100k. Zapped you some sats.
I disagree that the territories are too expensive. They should be expensive for at least the first six months so we can see which ones actually stick because they look like they are growing or have committed founders who are willing to operate at a loss because they either believe in the future potential of the territory or SN more broadly.
Ultimately, I think we retract to around 10 territories and level off there for awhile before slowly growing again. Many territories that exist now likely become either formal or informal sub territories of other territories. For instance, recently I noticed that the fitness sub is gone and we have all been posting our 100 push up a day accountability in the health territory. The chess sub is gone and I have reached out to @needcreations_ suggesting he creates an informal sub territory via labelling posts (Chess and Games or Games and Activities) under the sports sub. It isn't perfect but helps both parties out while the early months of chaos of territories play out.
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Damn guess we'll just chalk it up to a failed experiment 🤷‍♂️
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Threw in 10k. It's unfathomable to me that econ wouldn't survive. Appreciate all that you've shared about the situation. From the FAQ it seems like you should get more revenue but i guess the key word is fees and a ton of the zapping doesn't contribute at all to fees. I think the value is there, the split just needs to be redone.
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104 sats \ 0 replies \ @jeff OP 4 Feb
Thank you kind sir! I shall track these contributions, and see if there is something more than karma to do in the future.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 4 Feb
There is basically no tools to do anything cool
What kind of tools would you like to see?
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352 sats \ 0 replies \ @jeff OP 4 Feb
See 2nd part of #412084
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deleted by author
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