Nostr Web Client

I've been asked before about how Nostr differs from ActivityPub based social media like Mastodon a few times. My answer is both are decentralized but each is decentralized with a different topology.

Both Mastodon and Nostr are decentralized social media or communication platforms, however Mastodon is federated while Nostr is distributed. Mastodon is decentralized by means of having no central server by making each participant of the federated network their own centre, while Nostr is decentralized by means of none of them being a centre. Nostr relays cannot control or enforce their own rules in the same level as a Mastodon instance can.

You could say the same about an instant messenger, some are decentralized by means of having no central server, just multiple centers that can communicate with one another (like XMPP) or by letting you pick the relay servers anyone can host (like SimpleX) or by not having any servers at all and communicating between each other peer to peer (like Briar).

Not all decentralized messengers are the same, they are decentralized in different manners.

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Discussion

Ava 1y ago

🎯

nostr:nevent1qqspz8nm9a2sknuexl56rtufvxxswkqtx0pqz3a7fsmc8t4v4l0tcsqpr3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmqzyrq45kn9nph84dqnfhhr4wzj2nd9ch2tqnncknckeq5rwxfdx4gc2qcyqqqqqqgancu40

Ava 1y ago

🎯 masto is feudal

Big Barry Bitcoin 1y ago

I'd say the biggest difference is the user accounts.

On mastadon your account is owned by a mastadon server and although you can create a new account on another server at any time, it's not the same as an account being its own thing in its own right.

That's what nostr provides. Your account is created locally, locked to a secret key and no relay can restrict you from making posts under that account. Ever. They can only at best censor you and for that, we have distributed relays.

Nate 1y ago

I'm a fan of Kevin Cox's blog post "decentralization vs federated" is the best breakdown of the differences between the two terms IMO.

https://kevincox.ca/2023/07/20/decentralized-vs-federated/

I've been very slowly drafting a blog post comparing Activity Pub, Nostr, and AT. Pros and cons to all three, but me being here you can probably guess what I've concluded is my favorite.

final [GrapheneOS] 📱👁️‍🗨️ 1y ago

This is a good post. I think I have seen this blog before but it wasn't in my feed reader so I never saw this article yet. I enjoy reading blog works like this.