melvincarvalho on Nostr: The antizap is the opposite of a zap. A zap is an upvote with a payment. An antizap ...

The antizap is the opposite of a zap. A zap is an upvote with a payment. An antizap is a downvote with a payment.

Research by Fehr and Gachter has shown that zap-like rewards lead to increased cooperation. But only for a while, and then the free rider effect takes over, and cooperation goes down.

It turns out that what is needed is a form of punishment for bad content, to increase overall cooperation.

So an "antizap" is the logical counter balance to the zap.

Its a big problem where to route the payment in the event of an antizap, so that it cant be gamed. I think I figured this out. You route it to a process (or DVM -- data vending machine) that is neutral and just uses the money to pay for the storage, and for hosting (small non-zero amount). There can be many antizap machines, a market for them, in each country, with different profiles.

The higher the antizap value, the longer the downvote survives. It can also topped up or crowd funded. It will have a tamper-proof audit trail and track record, a transparent policy. Some will survive, others will not. The best antizap machines will emerge in an evolutionary environment.