Every Nostr Ad Experiment Compared to NextBlock's Promo Protocol
season S4 · episode 18 · block #893664
synopsis
Back from Madeira, Ian and Mandana survey the landscape of advertising experiments on Nostr — Zapvertising, BuzzBot, Prism, and SIGs for SATs (Atomic Signature Swaps) — comparing each to NextBlock's promo protocol. They also discuss Blue Sky's lack of ad innovation, why changing incentives produces different outcomes, and how the circular economy of zaps could fund a free internet.
quotes
"If you're not paying me, I'm not watching."
"I feel like that was not spam." (on Blockstream's zapvertisement)
"If you're spinning up a crypto to do that, you've already failed. How embarrassing."
"If you don't change the incentives, you're going to get the same outcomes."
"Not to be overly dramatic, but it changes everything."
"My guess of what the price of attention is, but I think it's a lot higher than we think."
topics
Attention theft and solutions on NostrZapvertising: paid messages in zap notes (non-consensual but valuable)BuzzBot: bounties on posts (15% fee, 70% to top zapper, 10% each to random engagers)Prism: zap-splitting attached to notesSIGs for SATs / Atomic Signature Swaps (Victor's protocol from Sovereign Engineering)The ASProtocol (Atomic Signature Swaps) — won MIT Bitcoin hackathonBlue Sky / AT Protocol: no ads, no innovation on monetizationNextBlock's promo protocol: signed events create verifiable attention recordsThe circular economy thesis: ads fund creators who fund the ecosystem