Personally I can see a use for zaps in regards to someone who puts out a product, videos, or the like. Or the ability to receive them on an account level without them being tied to a specific post, so that there's some separation between my conversations with others and financial rewards for certain conversations. But it's nice to see the the initial zap hype has mellowed out.
As to content discovery, I enjoy the hands on approach. I enjoy talking to someone, so I follow the people they do, the talk to them. As opposed to an algorithm that is more difficult for me to understand.