I’ve been noticing a trend lately on SN. More and more posts are getting boosted by the posters themselves. The goal is obvious: push the post higher in the rankings so it appears at the top of LIT.
To be honest, I can’t really understand the reasoning behind it. Maybe some people think that by boosting their own post, it’ll stay at the top of LIT and others will zap it. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, someone might boost a post simply because they want more people to read it and don’t care whether it gets zapped or not. But I think most people do it hoping to catch a few extra zaps.
The thing is, people forget that a bad post will still not get zaps no matter how much you boost it. On the other hand, a good post doesn’t need boosts, because stackers will immediately like it and zap it on their own.
To me, it feels like a pointless and unnecessary trend. You’re just wasting your sats for nothing. At least, that’s how I see it.
Prove me wrong.
Stacker News is a failed economic proposition.
It is not a viable self sustaining economic entity.
It is reliant upon egos and voluntary labour.
Territory owners are few who are self funding from income earned.
Boosting a post is at least more honest than what many like @denlillaapan do which is to use a sybil account to zap their own post.
Stacker News can only be viable if the quality of content increases and the number of participants who are happy to pay to consume content increases- this seems unlikely given the impression that Stacker News appears to be operated by strongly opinionated staff who openly take sides on many issues and do not treat all stackers equally.
The arsemilking circle jerking culture that has predominated on SNs is not one that will attract growth or prosperity.
It is simply an echo chamber for a small group of deluded libertarians who are demonstrably incapable of reasoned dialogue.
The idea that censorship would not be allowed on SNs has now been discredited with SNs enabling an anonymous nym to conceal their nym while downzapping any mention of The greater Israel Project into obscurity.
Is Stacker news funded by a wealthy Zionist patron?
It looks a lot like it.
Another way to think about it is like this: the posting fee in ~privacy is 500 sats. The posting fee in ~lol is 21 sats. The current LIT system ranks items by the total investment. Given equal zapping, a ~lol post will always show up lower than a ~privacy post. It makes some sense then to think of boost like investment in a post. If I've written something that is seriously funny, why wouldn't I want to at least boost it to equal footing with the ~privacy posts? Further, if you spend time on something you care about and think is interesting, are you willing to invest in its visibility?
I boost most of my posts, 100 sats or 200 sats. Sometimes I will boost it more if It's something that I really spent a lot of time on.
I didn’t know that. I have missed many updates on SN. 😁
However, you and @Undisciplined enter in this category:
I boost the posts about our new podcast episodes and new contests because I want people to see that they're up. Those posts aren't really intended to attract many zaps.
My other posts are left to their own merits.
I boost things on occasion to ensure people see it and to hopefully spur engagement. Has nothing to do with hoping to get zapped more sats. If I boost my own post I am pretty much accepting it will lose sats.
Totally agreed. That's what most of this, both up- and downzapping sort of feels like. Glamorized smoke up one's own arse...
What is wrong with paying for exposure? isn't it win-win?
If your post is bad then you make a bad investment by boosting it. That's also a good learning.
The whole point of boosting is to bring awareness (or hide) content on this platform.
The incentives of why someone does it will differ with each user.
One man’s trash can be another man’s treasure!
Self-zapping is actually better than boost, since self-zapping X sats has the same effect as boosting X sats, but you get 70% of the self-zapped sats back
Full disclosure: I don't self zap. But the incentive discontinuity has been on my mind for a while.
Yeah, I've noticed the same thing, and don't get it either. It makes sense for certain specific kinds of posts (business announcements where you want folks to see your site, etc), but otherwise, it just strikes me as paying for epeen.
OTOH, the more folks that pay, the better SN does, so I guess that's good for all of us. Just not a way I plan to contribute.
Interesting. I saw a fair few posts show up on LIT I was sure were boosted. Turns out they weren't.
I guess some people do like things I don't agree with. Shocker. I know.
Yep, noticed the status chasing as well. I don't really subscribe to it. Folks who want to read my stuff will, and those who don't scan over or block me. I do the same. There's room for everyone, but many are addicted to statistics-chasing to then brag about traffic etc.