Keeping posting fees low! Slow and steady wins the race.

Couple other things to consider, dead internet theory is real, engagement is generally an extremely low percentage of views...

Factoring that, the curiosity factor has worn off, not just SN, but all Lightning apps. Nostr for example is pronounced dead regularly. As such, my focus has been on infrastructure away from Video partly due to this. Engagement comes in small adoption waves, and Lightning infrastructure is currently too terrible to foster a big adoption wave for social apps.

Lightning apps also come with the tradeoff that higher signal content with less bots and bullshit is simply dramatically less engagement. We've been conditioned to fiat platforms where trash content is subsidized and brings trash engagement with it.

Territories seems to have been a controversial change here, I personally am interested by a wide-range of topics but it's a dilutive UX as implemented. When I comment on something its because I saw a link somewhere else or was tagged, I never browse the main site or specific territory.. my SN feed is the telegram channel which doesn't even indicate territories (and I think the telegram bot maybe filters stuff?)

This is the sentence I hope everyone sees. There are always going to be stackers who stop, either because of temporary issues (travel, life events), or just because people move on to something else online. For the site to grow, enough new folks need to stick around. Not that I have a solution, but it is a concern.

On another note, when someone uses a freebie, do territory owners get no fees, or does that come from SN? I know I've seen some freebie abuse here and there, and wasn't sure if they're screwing over just SN, or SN and the territory owners.

I'll be honest-- I still zap here as much as I used to per time spent here, but my time has been split with other platforms, including Twitter. I'm really almost exclusively interested in Bitcoin, and I find that most devs are on Twitter. I'm also on Nostr but it's a meme circus.

Some other thoughts--

Bull markets create NGU Bitcoiners and modern times bring bots and scammers.

Bear markets bring true Bitcoiners, and convert the NGUs who haven't sold.

NGU Bitcoiners are hoarders AND don't have much to say. Though there are many territories here, everyone ARRIVES here because of Bitcoin. We could have an inflow of 20-something degens from Reddit Bitcoin sub, but I really don't think you want those people. I occasionally DM people on various platforms to tell them about SN, but it's deliberate and targeted at those who I think "get it" enough to fit in here.

A natural ebb does not indicate disaster. Seasons for all things.

Well... A lot of other things have changed too. Territories and those monthly payouts might have played a part.

It could also be that everything has already been discussed.

I still get a lot more engagement on SN than I do on nostr. I quite like the community here with their various fields of expertise.

Thanks for making this post. It's one I've been mulling over for a little while.

Activity wise, we seem to be about where we were when territories were starting. One of the big differences is that SN is making money off of territory revenue now, which is another important element of SN continuing to exist.

We may have experienced something like an artificial boom when territories proliferated and posts were cheap. Founders discovered that they couldn't ever hope to break-even like that, so they either closed up shop or they raised their prices. Naturally, posting declined.

Another possibility is that some of the subtle efforts at reducing disingenuous engagement have put downward pressure on the metrics.

There may also be seasonality on SN, with the summer being a little less active. It's too early to draw conclusions from prior years, but there was a dip last year.

All that said, I selfishly want us to improve our retention of quality stackers. There are definitely some who are not as active and others who have left entirely. I hope this post stirs up some good solutions.

I don't know why people are giving fewer zaps, I guess few understand how SN works and how important zapping is on the platform, I don't blame them, I started similarly, maybe a guide on how to use SN and how important zap is could be a viable solution...

What I am finding is most of the activity on SN is really only happening in a 6-8 hour window tied to eastern and central time in North America and the evenings on the weekend are even worse than during the week. I have been trying to jump on and post and zap at different times but no one is around.

So because everyone is on during a short period of time all the content is being produced in that time and people are trying to maximize their zaps and rewards.

I do also agree that a lot of newer stackers aren’t zapping that much.

We all have our own witchdoctors when it comes to this stuff, but my own haruspicy says:

We haven't been working on this stuff (I've hardly been able to look at it) because we've been working on the wallets, so its all suffering. The one person who was tasked with looking at it and working on it while the programmers were programming, walked away around the same time. Territory and posting fees might be contributing, but I'm not sure what to do about that. Revenue isn't really important right now, so neither is important for revenue, but both are important for preventing an abundance of things we don't want.

Perhaps remove the Leaderboard altogether. It’s quite demoralising to post and comment when you are far down in the rankings - and consequently think that your comments won’t matter.

N revert to the old way of announcing rewards. Like this comment came in at 120th position to net 169 sats. I was always pleasantly surprised at how my throwaway comments written near the end of the day somehow garnered me some sats lol.

I also think we need to move away of zapping = gaining back more sats n build a culture where we are more intrinsically motivated to zap because it makes us feel good. It’s why we give generous tips irl haha.

Maybe we need less stacker and more zappers rather than more stackers and less zappers. I think that one year ago you had here more zappers than stakers. I wasn't here a year ago, but when I joined SN in February this year, there still were more zappers than stackers here. So, when I saw people zapping my posts and comments with generosity, it gave the straight message that I should do the same because this is the way this site works.

Probably, people are receiving another message today: zap less, stack more until SN is available!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have been just a couple of months in SN. Still trying to figure this out, though not as prolific as other stackers. Zapping higher than in my first days but perhaps not as much as others.

I'm new here and I've noticed this. I think it's very important to reconsider posting fees by territory owners while focusing on managing posts. Similarly, to avoid posting being monopolized by a specific, small group. SN is a great thing and an innovative idea. I hope this grows.

I wasn't here back then, but I think having a stronger referral program would help. Another thing I think would help is connecting through mainstream podcasts. I believe I found out about this through Peter McCormack's podcast. There are a lot of bitcoiners that would join if they knew about it!

A stronger referral program paired with discussions of stacker-news on larger podcasts/conferences/meetups could be a big help.

I actually come here for news and discussion. Zaps/sats are secondary and nice :-)

I think it's a feature, not a bug. It might act as a filter. I noticed that blatantly a couple of days after starting using the site, wrote this post about it: Zapping feels like playing Go!

I think the slow down in posting might be due to said filter acting, which is a very specific characteristic of SN that I actually like. SN has become my go-to network, way above twitter, because I feel I will make good use of my time. That attitude in itself is a niche attitude in the social network market, much of which is already taken by reddit.

To me a solid solution to growth is the fourth one posted here, "make every link to SN a referrer link". Simple, elegant, fair, organic.

Great thoughts. Maybe people needed a break after the monthly madness contests and summer time for many posters?

Thanks for questioning and moving us forward!

I think the main problem is the lack of stackers. Yesterday at midnight European time the leaderboard still didn't have 100 stackers.

OK, time to increase my default zap amount.

I think it would not be bad to reduce the rates of some territories, to further encourage the interaction of new users who are learning how the SN economy works.

I don't think that I'm eligible to answer this so I'm gonna ask everyone a question!

I had a look at the analytics and I can say it looked to me like a normal/regular dip. I also considered that in late last year and early this year, there was a big spike.

What if we default to recent instead of hot?

How often do you scroll to bottom comments?

Recently I started viewing recent instead of hot

This thread feels like a Monday morning in office space

TPS reports will be ready at noon

I am planning to create a new territory this week.

Your post has not deterred me because I am staying the course for 2 months maybe 3

This was something I have been thinking about, too. Many nights there are posts I dont really want to comment on, because they arent my interest. I remember March Madness had so many posts. I might need to start posting on old articles, just to enjoy my interaction on here. It might be time to move up my zapping to 21 sats lol

I've learnt it. I'm sure anyone who takes interest here will learn it.

Yes, you're right. As you know I've taken a few new Stackers to SN after I found it intriguing. Some are even very new to Bitcoin. I've told them that tipping or zapping here at SN isn't like someone is giving away his sats. Told them about how leaderboards work and everything. However whenever I check stats for those who are very active, I find that they aren't zapping generously. Yes one or two have slowly realised, but still they need to learn.

I also think that the fiat price of Bitcoin has a lot to do with this downfall in zapping and fees.

Meme Monday and Fun Fact Fridays should also return. If not one stacker, top 10 or top 20 Stackers should take this responsibility. I'm ready if something forms up. We need more engagement. It seems more to me that SN is getting less engagement than those 2 months of MSM

I think the more btc price will go up in fiat terms the less sats you will get as zaps and this is inevitable. It's like creating the SN in 2012 and then wondering why nobody is willing to zap 0.01 BTC anymore these days. I also had a feeling there were much more generous zaps on nostr when btc was below 20k last year. Solution - get used to smaller zaps=) SN also need to reduce the price per territory in BTC terms=)

Was about to make 69420 words long comment but realized i'm nobody here lmao

-i wonder if it did not changed since the fee for a post got higher from 25 sats to 100 sats ?

-100 sats represents 0.0583 euros may be psychologically it is a lot...

-If you spend more than you earn, it s a bit normal that you do not want to zap (especially for newbies, you are not aware of all the guidelance). May be if someone subscribes, it can be helpfull if he receives an email with the main points

-You should add a reminder "by giving sats you earn more" may be in each topic (as a highlight at the begining a topic page)

Remember my warnings about this to happen? #509885

Yep, I noticed it too, and I too am thoroughly shocked at the price tag some territory owners choose to put on posting on their territory.