This reply is more thoughtful and I appreciate the words of kindness. Some of your points are spot on, but some are still off, however.
> Fostering a community that expresses value in zaps: Absolutely. Zaps are revolutionary. Anyone ignoring them is a fool.
> Talking about zaps explicitly comes off as dicey: That’s a you problem, not a me problem. Your feelings and misinterpretations are not my responsibility. Monetizing digital content is a multi billion dollar industry, and nostr + bitcoin removes nearly all barriers imposed by centralized systems. Why should we pretend that this space is anything less than revolutionary for creators? Why should I act like zaps don’t exist, or that monetizing digital content isn’t a thing? It obviously is. Anyone offended by this is stupid.
> All forms of engagement seem valuable in their own way: Not likes. They’re worthless. Replies, reposts, zaps, quotes, are all meaningful interactions in their own way, and I didn’t discourage them in this meme, nor have I ever discouraged them that I am aware of. Likes, however, provide zero benefit/value to creators and ought to have never been added to the protocol.
If you want to show someone posting digital content on nostr that you appreciate their work, a zap is the most potent and “tangible” way of doing so, but of course other interactions have meaning too.
Replies (7)
The only issue with zaps as a solution to V4V is that each zap has mental friction (Szabo wrote about this)
Recurring financial patronage of artists (think patreon) is the most brilliant I think. A $0.25 recurring monthly support for a creator is not nothing, but that amount is prohibitively small for traditional financial rails
When you say likes are worthless do you mean from a monetary standpoint or from a signal standpoint? Because likes also act as some sorts of signal on the post in question.
A post with no interaction and a post with likes cant be compared. Sure it might be the least useful from the other options you raised. But does that make it worthless?
- online community is an illusion, maybe a delusion in some cases
- human interaction online is unreal because it is not face to face and therefore not intimate
- community as it is online is a synonym for tribalism
get off your phone, computer and be in the world
So, if I say "Hey, I made art, pay me money if you like it." It's not that you're wrong, it's that you come off as desperate. You don't need to tell people to pay you if they want to do it.
I don't personally care if you come off as desperate, I was just acknowledging how that sounds.
As far as "likes" go reactions are a way of gauging what the passive observer feels when seeing your post. Not useless, but simple information. It isn't a substitute for a zap or quote but I don't think it claimed to be.
Anyway, hopefully this was just as nuanced and thoughtful.
I liked your post in advance of replying as a way of demonstrating that I am replying in a non-adversarial way.
That's the use for likes on NOSTR.
Not all posts are zap worthy.
Text based communication has a tendency to fall short of its intended outcome on a pretty regular basis from what I've seen. People communicate poorly often. Leading a reply with a like is a way of mitigating misinterpretation of ambiguously worded replies in the mind of the person to whom the reply is directed.
Likes are also a way of indicating to a person that their content has been seen. People appreciate knowing they've been seen. If you don't believe me, ghost everyone in your life and see how that goes.
Idk. I think likes still provide a function. Majority of posts are not worth zaps. This is what it will trend towards. The honeymoon phase of overzapping because it's just so cool technology wise will end and the volume of zaps will decrease and maybe amount per zap increase. The like function for me is what I use when I think a post is decent but simply not worth a zap. That's just how I do it. Cool thing here is that everyone has their own way of interacting with all this. Btw, I also can see the other side where likes could potentially be done away with completely and you either found enough value in the content to zap, or you didn't. That's a totally possible outcome I guess. But I don't necessarily think that having an extra function hurts anything as opposed to removing something taking away something. And the proof is in the pudding because the like button is still used quite a lot.
