Some background: This morning, I saw a post on X - something like “according to Nostr Iran seems like a pretty big deal. According to MSM it’s a non story. If your concerned about censorship at least follow nostr:nprofile1qqs8t4ehcdrjgugzn3zgw6enp53gg2y2gfmekkg69m2d4gwxcpl04acppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2ap0l2sp3z, nostr:nprofile1qqs0g0skapecw5fwzfzlhl3c2klyhkfepjwmte88gtd25nu8a4h09pgprpmhxw309ucnjdpwxyun2t3jxgezudph8g6rsdpcqythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnvv9mkzmrvv46zuctjns3r4v ”

Already downloaded bitchat following an X post re Uganda. Downloaded White Noise iOS test flight app. Created Nostr account using it with the generated name. Just clicked “next, next, finish”. Now I don’t know anyone in “real life” to add so kind of stuck there. However in the tweet comments was another tweet which referenced nostr:nprofile1qqsraldwhvwcjgltmxwfu7kw8dqef2692yhzheuurd7k3kfy8cxjdqgpr9mhxue69uhhq7tjv9kkjepwve5kzar2v9nzucm0d5q3gamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7z9wm27 and nostr:nprofile1qqs9xtvrphl7p8qnua0gk9zusft33lqjkqqr7cwkr6g8wusu0lle8jcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgqgcwaehxw309ac8yetdd96k6tnswf5k6ctv9ehx2aqlq2uxh .

I had downloaded nostr:nprofile1qqs9xtvrphl7p8qnua0gk9zusft33lqjkqqr7cwkr6g8wusu0lle8jcpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgqgcwaehxw309ac8yetdd96k6tnswf5k6ctv9ehx2aqlq2uxh many months ago but got stuck at the signup page on the app. I can’t remember what, but it asked for some information that I didn’t want to provide, an email maybe. Anyway, I downloaded nostr:nprofile1qqsraldwhvwcjgltmxwfu7kw8dqef2692yhzheuurd7k3kfy8cxjdqgpr9mhxue69uhhq7tjv9kkjepwve5kzar2v9nzucm0d5q3gamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7z9wm27 to give that a try instead. It asked me for my Name and an, admittedly optional, Bio. My NAME!? This stopped me in my tracks. This is supposed to be anonymous? I’m not giving it my name. No. Nope. Not a chance.

However this time was different… Taking a breath, I see the words, “Already on Nostr? Log in”. So I took my brand new Nostr private key from White Noise and used it to log into Damus. I’m now logged in using the Nostr account that White Noise created for me. I follow some people, have a click around. I then open Primal, log in with my Nostr private key. I see the same people I followed on the other account, all synchronised via the Nostr account/network. Nice!

Now how to chose between Damus and Primal? Well primal seems to have some extra functionality, and I had seen it referred to by more of the people I follow on X, so probably that one, but a quick flick into the changelog on the App Store seals the deal for me. Primal has completed many updates in the past year, @Damus hasn’t updated anything in 7 months.

So here I am, a new user/Nostr community member. I check out the Trending 24H feed and come across this. My first though is, “I hope not, I just got here”. My second is about perspective, and that leads me to where I believe both the challenge and hopefully the magic is with Nostr.

I believe every person has a unique perspective, based on their experience up to this present moment. That is based on their interactions with the world, inputs received, outputs shared, resulting feedback, ad infinitum. Some people may think it incredibly silly that the mere fact I had to pick a name stopped me dead in my tracks, but that was my blocker to adoption. The fact that the developers of White Noise added to their UX the random generation of a name, and my prior knowledge of decentralized networks and public/private keys allowed me to then be unblocked for adoption.

Now I don’t think I will use White Noise much as I don’t think that is a use case for me, at least right now, but development in one app in the Nostr ecosystem unblocked a barrier to entry for me in another app. If a Nostr community member hadn’t posted on X, I wouldn’t have known. If previous content creators hadn’t produced content to educate me on decentralized networks I wouldn’t have joined the dot. If bitcoin content creators hadn’t made me think about decentralized networks on a wider scale I wouldn’t have gone looking for that education. My point is, adoption is complex, it is many, many, small seemingly insignificant things that combine to a “tipping point” that turn a “interested outsider” into a community member/user.

Some external factors (covid, emergencies, law/policy change etc) can change the balance of the barriers to entry for people, ie the “pain” makes historical concerns less significant in a given moment. Depending on the barrier this may lead to a “well it’s done now and that wasn’t so bad was it”, or “now “the pain” has reduced I’m not comfortable anymore” recalculation of the barriers to entry/continued adoption. Its not fixed, it’s fluid, which is especially apparent with decentralized open source ecosystems, there, by design, is no central authority that says “this is your only option”/“you have to do this or else”. So there will be ebbs and flows, peaks and troughs.

What will enable success, in my meager opinion anyway, is the belief, but more importantly consistency of every community member, as you never know what contribution you make today, will unlock something for someone else tomorrow.

One final thought or perspective, is feeling SAFE:

I lost faith in “the system” a few years ago and that has left me in a sort of limbo. I don’t trust what I have been told to date, I don’t know who to trust, I don’t understand the new technologies well enough and they (whilst much better than before) are still different and a bit clunky, but most importantly, I still have a day job, a family, responsibilities, that take up increasing amounts of my time, energy and attention. That resulted in me just stopping participating. No social media posts, closing down old accounts, talking with people less as they don’t like “my conspiracy theories”. I reduced and collapsed my life in the old system, but had no new system to put it into. That just left me a collapsed person. I feel like, from my perspective, the next phase of adoption comes from not making people aware of the problem, not building a new system, not understanding/educating on the new system, these are all important, but it is to help people experience the new system, to feel safe, to feel empowered. Things will continue to happen that push people to seek out alternatives, but in that state people are scared and fear is great at reducing your cognitive abilities. Things “just need to work” and people need to feel safe and supported. And that, as they say, “takes a village”.

I wouldn’t in a million years, no I couldn’t, post this on X or any other platform, because the pure, brutal, honest, vulnerable truth of the matter is that I wouldn’t feel safe to do so. And it’s only from writing this now, that I realise, I wouldn’t feel safe sharing this in any aspect of my “normal” life. Now I’m not trying to compare my lack of safety to others, I’m very fortunate compared to other people globally and don’t take that for granted, but there is something powerful to be able to share without the shackles of societal noise wrapped around me. Anonymity gives me that safety.

Yes I’m a bitcoiner and that is what led me here, but what would keep me here is that feeling of safety. That feeling of being in an environment, a community, where I can share my perspective with others, without the constraints of societal or personal expectations, where I don’t need to filter myself, or be filtered, where I can speak my truth and for others to do the same. We all are unique and have a unique perspective and experience of and on things that when shared enhance the collective whole.

Maybe one day my feeling of safety evolves into feeling empowered, which one day evolves into feeling self-sovereign and maybe that changes my name from this random generated one to my real one or maybe something else entirely, but for now, WHAT I have to say being more important than WHO is saying it, is for me, in this moment, the magic here.

I may well be shouting into the wind on a “dead” platform, and even if noone reads this, I know it helped at least one person, and that’s me. Hopefully it can somehow help others too