I try to explain pubkey cryptography again and again. This doesn’t click with non-techies. How can nostr? With hashing and even signing involved?
The comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38718544 are proof that we can't make "just apps" and have people use them without knowing that Nostr is a thing. Users must know.
And in fact I think it is much easier to teach people about Nostr than about why your damn app doesn't have email+password login and where is it storing things and how does moderation work without telling them about Nostr.
And when they finally understand the basics of Nostr they will suddenly understand everything about not only your app, but about all other Nostr clients.
Discussion
Try starting from the relay side: "if you publish your content to a bunch of servers and people also read it from a bunch of random untrusted servers, how can you be sure it was written by the correct person?"
After they think for a while you can just say cryptographic signatures solve that.
“A bunch of servers” is already too much probably. “One server” seems to be the limit of understanding. But I guess I should try that simplified contrast more: Twitter has one server, nostr has multiple.