I get that the incentives are skewed. but they are pretty effective at attracting and retaining large number of users. to achieve this they do heavily surveillance on user activity, many iterations of a+b testing tweaks to their UI to create UX. If we can learn lessons from them, so long as we critically evaluate knowing they are prioritise attention and retention above satisfaction and well being.

*sighs* There's a lot to unpack in that one statement, as usual. 1. IDGAF about businesses, in general. The app/system I want is not a business. I want to be able to rate and share book recommendations with fellow nostriches. 2. I can parse BS reviews from others. I know that's not a universal quality. I am ignorant of how things can be "gamed" since I don't think about things like that and am more honest than most. 3. I suppose my view of this is rather myopic since I don't expect this to be used by very many people for a very significant period of time. I'm overall very skeptical of nostr super-adoption, so... I can deal with a preferably simpler system at the beginning that is coded to be flexible enough to add in enough Pow to prevent gaming later. Start simple, but start!

All of that is only relevant if you're building a business to make profit. This is not that. Stop bringing that stuff into the nostr protocol. It will poison the well.