the point is you can do whatever you want. including sending money. if you’re making posts with the sole intention of trying to be zapped they’ll probably be shitty posts and you won’t get zapped. zapping is a feature not a requirement and there are many features nostr has that traditional social media platforms do not have. you can just use nostr as venmo if you didn’t have access to venmo in your country for example. or a anon journalist could monetize their content where they otherwise couldn’t. or you can just shitpost and people can send you bitcoin if they chose to. what is the downside of zaps? i’m not really understanding how having the option to send bitcoin is a negative.

You are correct. All the downsides of zaps only arise when they are implemented and used. I don't understand why zaps are implemented and used. Why would I need a financial incentive to post my thoughts? And why would I want to read a person's thoughts if they are only posting them because they are being paid to?