“Most people don’t know or care about protocols”. Some interesting points here
Discussion
> like Damus
"Freedom tech" and "Apple devices" are incompatible because Apple doesn't give freedom to users.
I just did some deep research and it didn’t disappoint..
“But what happens when the threats to liberty move from the physical world to the digital realm? Today, our personal and political freedoms depend not only on muskets or handguns, but on encryption, privacy software, and decentralized networks – what we might call “freedom tech.” Just as firearms allow individuals to defend life and property, these digital tools allow us to defend our privacy, security, and autonomy. It’s time to recognize that digital self-defense is as essential today as physical self-defense was in 1791. We should frame encryption and other privacy technologies as fundamental rights in the digital age – a modern equivalent of the Second Amendment’s guarantee, empowering citizens to protect themselves and check government overreach.”
Sadly, the proles have been propagandized into using both physical and digital weapons not to save themselves, but instead to actually abet the rulers in their goal to retain dominion in perpetuity whilst they quest for their own immortality.
In other words: "yeah there's guns, and who owns them? Like Biden said, "if you want to fight the government, you need an F-15 (or whatever)". There's plenty of weaponry to stave off or even overthrow the ruling class, but the problem is that the enough proles are willing to actually assist the ruling class in subjugation of the proles so that the ruling class continues to rule.
Revolt? No need for violence. Just stop working for "the man", as they called it in the 60's. Once the ruling class can't get payroll processed or runs out of toilet paper, the war is won. And for God's sake, stop carrying "the man's" weapons.
This is good, thank you 🙏
Truth be told .. I never worried about
- being deplatformed from social media
- cancelled by a bank
- surveillance
These are made up narratives for the convenience of 0.1 percent individuals who aspire to hold bigger mouth piece .. common people don't even think about such things ..
I have had all 3 happen to me.
You.
Not the majority of the population.
You can’t sell things that do not matter to your customer.
So freedom tech will never be a household term because it’s inherently niche in terms the number of people who benefit from the solution? It’s possible i’m a product of some low probability events, but these are serious issues in everywhere that is not america from what i understand.
You don't need to take my word for it .. just look around .. Freedom tech is around for ever ....never became mainstream!
That said - I am NOT suggesting it is not important.. all I am saying is , if you want to spend rest of your life building for people like yourself :-) .. by all means !.. it is a super good thing .. but it is not for the masses ..
And it is NOT even aligned to #nostr .. cuz purpose of nostr is to take #bitcoin to 8 billion people .. otherwise it is just another nerdy social application - lot more complex that an average person may be able to start with !
Until you have a completely innocent webshop and mostly use instagram for your advertisement and some automated moderation bot nukes your account for lord knows what reason; good luck getting in touch with a human to get it restored.
Until you are just a normal guy, but happen to be Brazillian and some court decides X is no longer a thing for you.
I can go on and on. Now your percecption may very well what you described, does not mean it is correct.
When someone's business Instagram gets nuked by a moderation bot that someone doesn't typically think "well I guess I better seek out a censorship-resistant network now".
They think: "How can I get back my Instagram and fix all this?" Instagram is where their customers are. Moving to another network doesn't solve anything at all; being uncensored and without any customers is no different to being blocked from interacting with your customers. In many ways it's even more hopeless.
The same for public personalities. When you calculate the value of censorship resistance you have to factor in audience size and composition. An empty comedy club where a comedian can say what he wants makes no sense. Right now pitching Nostr for censorship resistance is like pitching a naughty comedian an empty comedy club where he can say whatever he wants. Great.
My feeling is that until Nostr represents a sizeable customer base then there is zero point in positioning it as anything of value in the eyes of sellers who have had trouble with their Instagram or TikTok or whatever.
Obvious bootstrap problem is obvious. Also, you are wrong; plenty of creators and alike decide to go the way of focussing on their own website and building an email-list because they got burned on platforms or were smart enough from the get-go. They do this because eventhough they have to start over again and/or things might grow slower (innitially), they know that the following-capital they have build cant be rugged out underneath them on a whim.
The whole point of Nostr is to provide both censorship resistance AND network effect; and is therefor a superiour way (albeit eventually) to either platforms or ones own website
Times have changed. Most people selling on Instagram or TikTok today, for them it would be unthinkable to focuss on their own website and build an email-list as an actual alternative (i.e. with a view to giving up on Instagram or TikTok).
And yes of course it's chicken and egg. But in this case I think audience/customer base must come first, before you can even start to talk meaningfully about censorship resistance. Most chicken and egg problems are solved by coming to the understanding that either the chicken or the egg is in fact more fundamental.
'Unthinkable', yes, indeed, they are unaware; unaware of the risks they run by attaching themselves to a platform, unaware of the nature/architecure of the problem, unaware of the sollution.
They "feel" they have no alternative, just as much they "feel" there are issues. Same goes for the audience side, that "feel" there are issues with platforms(the algos, dark patterns etc) and "feel" there is no way out (and why many probably welcome government intervention, if not out of sheer desperation).
Obviously converting the center in a single day is not a thing, but especially these days there is a whole lot there in the margin that is ready for 'capture'; and going back to Williams original post, is a matter of getting the point across
Oh, and the point is that getting all those margins actually works/adds cummulative value in the context of Nostr
I share the wider sentiment, but for me I look at nostr stats and I see that it’s now shrinking, having shed a couple thousand daily actives over the last few months. What are we at now, 15k daily trusted pubkeys? And if you run a few more common-sense filters on top of that to weed out accounts that are not genuinely active, what are we left with then? A few thousand?
Like it’s just at such an embryonic stage right now that any talk of nostr replacing anything for anyone other than nostr enthusiasts seems a little jump-the-gunny .
Maybe the focus should be more on pure survival, just getting back to growth, fixing things, cutting out mess. The rest, for which we all have ideas for, save for 2026.
You are saying as if X is water supply or electricity :-)
if X is stopped by Barzil .. use something else ! ..why is it such a big thing ?
Btw ..why do Brazilians even use X !
As far as outreach to human ! Don't you have bank branches ? That is what human connection is for normies .. try talking to someone in #bitcoin space :-)