As @QW mentioned there is a lot to unpack in what you said. Both @QW and @Derek Ross already mentioned a lot of the benefits of Bitcoin so I'll concentrate on offering insight into your last question. In some ways you could say the same thing about anything else in life such as life advice. Just because you can get something for free, doesn't mean it has no value. The thing with #zaps is that there are no rules and that's the beauty of it too. It becomes a free market dynamic where anyone can decide what they think something else is worth through a one-way public benevolent act. Like kickstarter but on a very granular level.

The Nostr protocol doesn't inherently support cryptocurrency transactions. It's a protocol for creating a censorship-resistant global network. In the context of Bitcoin, mining refers to the process of validating and recording transactions on the blockchain. Miners solve complex mathematical problems to validate transactions and are rewarded with newly minted bitcoins. When sats are sent via Nostr, the mining process is still being handled by the Bitcoin network, not by Nostr itself. The Nostr protocol merely acts as a medium for initiating or communicating the transaction. The rationale behind sending small amounts of cryptocurrency to strangers can vary. It might be for tipping content creators, rewarding participation, incentivizing certain behaviors, or simply as a gesture of goodwill. Solutions like the Lightning Network are being developed to address Bitcoin's scalability issues by enabling off-chain transactions. Integrating such solutions could be a consideration if Nostr were to support cryptocurrency transactions.