V4V is still only a theory. I have yet to see evidence that V4V works in practice over the last 3.5 years. If you look at "value distribution" it looks more like V4P or "Value for Popularity," which in this community seems to manifest as "Value for Appealing-to-Agreeing-With-And-Propagating-The-Message-Of-Those-Who-Have-Power-Money-And-Influence." This is actually not much different than the status quo in the "fiat world," and could even been seen as contradictory to the proposition of V4V. Throughout history, concepts, creations and philosophies of true and lasting value are often contentious and disruptive to the powerful and influential, very, very rarely are they popular, more often than not they are extremely unpopular; at least initially. In the software development side of V4V specifically, i have observed that it is that only the tip of the iceberg is rewarded, while everything that the tip relies on is taken for granted, and the value never really "trickles down." It's not sustainable, because it indirectly incentivizes superficially presenting "value" by leveraging the hard value creation of others. This has the side effect of rationalizing closed-source development so that the actual creators of value can leverage their effort instead of their labor being leveraged by "drive-by influencers" I say this as someone who was critical piece to onboarding initial wave of users in 2022/2023, where basically every client-dev at the time externalized the responsibility to me (until they could handle it internall), has served well over 1 million unique visitors, 150M requests and provided services for 140+ clients, tools and utilities over the last 3.5 years, but yet has seen less cumulative "value" (zaps) than a single photo of a cappuccino published by someone popular in 2023. This is not a complaint, it's an objective observation of statistics that clearly suggest I have provided value, yet the actual data tells me otherwise. I think the solution is to find a way to reward "deep value" where all contributions in the tree of value creation are rewarded, not just the individual or group that puts all the pieces together and has the time and reach to get rewarded for it. Solving this problem sooner rather than later will help cure the inverted incentive structure, and potentially liberate true "V4V." V4V is a wonderful concept, and it's why I was initially attracted to this community, but unfortunately it's an idea that has not come to fruition and also why I have been moving away from it. Note: I intentionally removed my LUD-16 a couple months ago.