Why are they mutually exclusive? Won't you just get both if you do both?

In the prev system i posted like a crazy person but zapped sparsely... Still netted tons of rewards 
(Fair enough, that was from daily subsidies so I take your point)

Now it's like, why bother put effort into posting when spam-zapping everything gets me (almost) the same reward?

denlillaapan

No, but if there’s a larger supply of zaps and you’re capable of making top posts, then doing so will get you a bunch of sats.

If it’s only content that earns rewards, then there’s no incentive to zap it at all. That leaves you with neither zaps nor rewards.

SN release: top/posts/<when>?by=downsats, partial not-custodial zap splits

k00b

No, but if there’s a larger supply of zaps and you’re capable of making top posts, then doing so will get you a bunch of sats. 

If it’s only content that earns rewards, then there’s no incentive to zap it at all. That leaves you with neither zaps nor rewards.