Nostr

Tell me if my Internet vs. Nostr analogy is correct.

Today's internet is basically sending information through a path that all goes through a central point and then back out again to wherever it wills. That central point (regardless of what it is) is controlled and owned by a regulating authority or business license of some kind.

Nostr is like talking on a CB or a Ham radio. You send messages out from you, from your location, and some people in the surrounding area within range picks up your message. If needed, they'll repeat that message from their CB or Ham radio to their surrounding area where some more people in their range picks it up... and so on.

Is that the right way to describe it?

Guy Swann 1y ago

I would say this is a more accurate analogy for a pure P2P network like BitTorrent, Bitcoin, or the Pear stack (Keet, Holepunch, Holesail, etc).

A better analogy for #Nostr might be that anyone can setup a small tower and be a broadcaster, and everyone connects to any number of towers that they want (infinite range). So rather than having central points of transmission, it looks something more like pirate radio. Anyone can setup a broadcast and people can openly connect to them to communicate with anyone on those towers. So still sort of like the central point model, except it’s an open protocol and tons of people can make these “central points,” thus drastically lowering the risk that any particular tower becomes a censor, or manipulative.

In other words, rather than eliminating the central server and client model, it distributes the job of the server across tons of different relays using an open protocol and anyone can easily be one.

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Discussion

Den Yellek 1y ago

Misty 1y ago

So in this respect, a person is broadcasting from a location they own and control alone, but rather than the only people within physical range being able to detect, tune in, and hear it, that signal is available to anyone who has the digital address of that signal.

Each person has a broadcasting tower of their own. Anyone with the digital address of that broadcasting tower can "hear" the content broadcast from it, eliminating physical limitations like mountains or radio wave range.

Person = Person

Broadcasting Tower = npub address

Speakers = relays

Right?

Guy Swann 1y ago

Not exactly. For the way I was meaning the analogy, its more like this:

Person = npub/keys

Communication tower = relay

Speakers = the app or client

But otherwise yes, you can essentially select any tower from anywhere in the world to connect to with no mountains or reach limitations, and anyone can easily set up their own tower by booting up a web server for either their own private use or to publicly allow others to connect and broadcast with.