Oh, one other thing I've noticed, that's taken like 6 months of pretty heavy activity to detect:

Zapping and zapping-back in conversation has definitely affected how I feel about relationships on the site. This is notable because in many cases it's roughly neutral -- neither I, nor my conversation partners, have made any money, or at least, the imbalance is probably tiny after all these months. But the feeling that is established is incredibly meaningful. In some cases, it's changed from a modest hostility on my part, to a substantial feeling of goodwill, just through these zaps and counter-zaps.

It reminds me, in a way, of a potlatch of ritual gift-giving. In fact, in many ways I understand the latter much better, after having been in this zapping economy for a while.

This seems like a non-trivial observation, since SN is often discussed as a way to earn sats, which it technically is. But much more powerful, in my experience, has been the pro-sociality that zapping sats back and forth has produced. Outside of potlatch, it reminds me of when you get to a point with a friend where you barely keep track of who's being beer or lunch or coffee. So even though you need money to do it, the power is not at all dependent on how much money you actually walk away with.

I'd be interested in other perspectives on this one bc the implications are large -- another way that psychology comes into play in this space.