Last year, we went through different experiments with the rewards system almost every month. They got distracted with the wallet stuff, but the norm is fiddling with the rewards system.
It shouldn't be. Every time they fiddle with the rewards system we see some long term stackers leave. For you it's a fun experiment. For me it is poor operational execution of a business.
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I am going to learn to keep my mouth shut though and just go with the flow and try to continue to enjoy my SN experience despite my concerns.
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I would agree with you, if Stacker News were older. Because we're here on the ground floor, we're seeing the design take shape. Even if they had the right rewards system in place at one point, it may not be the right system once a major change like territories is introduced.
The only way to figure this out is by experimenting.
I had said a few times that I was concerned the territory financial model was untenable. There wasn't likely to be enough revenue to support territory rent and consequently there wouldn't be enough territory rent to support the site. This seems like it may address that issue.
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There are too many territories as is. Territory financial model does not need to be tenable at this point. Territory founders need to know SN management is focused on the best possible experience on site. The external wallet stuff is a necessary evil to keep SN out of legal trouble but is a net negative in terms of experience. I have been fighting with it for two days. Most people aren't going to bother and give up. Integrations need to seamless, stackers need guidance on what wallets they can use for what and simple tutorials on how to get it done.
We already have a top heavy daily rewards pool. Great for stackers like you Siggy and me. You guys are always top 5 and I am always 5-10. 5 sats out of 100 sats zap used to go to rewards pool. Now it will be 9 sats. Because of the way the rewards distribution is structured this will just encourage more people to try and game the system because getting a lot less sats per zap now means you definitely want to be in the top 10.
Gaining and retaining users should be paramount. I don't need to make an extra 1k sats a day in territory revenue taking away from stackers zaps. Even if it would lead to break even for the territory (it won't), I would much rather the territory reach profitability in a more robust and sustainable way which is more activity, more posts, more zaps, more stackers on the site.
That's my position and I don't want to get into another lengthy debate about SN.
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Fair enough and those are all reasonable points.
I completely agree about the wallet stuff. If it could have been avoided, that would have been best and it's going to be a severe drag on recruiting stackers.
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We don't even have a list of wallets that are viable. At first I wanted to use Breez and k00b said no can't use that one for x reason. Then I said ok I will use phoenix and k00b said you can't use that one for y reason. Then I finally got sorted with coinos and found out that coinos had a rate limit so you couldn't zap more than 8 times per minute. That certainly won't work for me. Then there was an error between Coinos and SN. It was just a total mess and it got sorted in the end but I spent hours going back and forth with k00b, ek and the guy from coinos. Most people won't do that. We need a list of wallets it will work with and any limiting factors (like rate limits) and a tutorial on how to set them up.
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That's why I'm saying, it's not a good option. I've a good idea but I think noone is gonna like that.
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What's your idea? I like ideas that alienate everyone.
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I think SN should adopt to a credit (points) system where users will buy credits for real Sats.
The credit points can then be exchanged for Sats through SN.
This will keep the SN away from any dangers of shutting down by authorities. This will also provide a seamless experience.
100%
I don't even want to play around with it (more than I have) until we have that kind of detail. I don't understand all the technical differences across lightning wallets and I'm sick of starting to use a wallet just to find out it's not going to ultimately do what I need or continue being supported by its developers.
We didn't have to worry about any of that stuff with the built in wallet.
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So far, I don't see any problems in SN continuing with their own wallet. There's no harm if there are no big movement Sats. SN can cap them.
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It's a US regulatory thing, although I think they wanted to go this direction eventually.