No ads, no algorithm, no CEO here.
These make for a far better experience than Twitter, in my opinion.
Discussion
Just like ethereum doesn’t have ceo
I thought you were talking about nostr. Not sure what eth has to do with it
I am talking about Nostr. Are you dating Nostr is as decentralised as a protocol as bitcoin? I’m comparing it to other decentralised protocols like [insert your favourite non pow protocol here]
You lost me. You were talking about user experience on twitter vs nostr but then moved to eth somehow.
But to answer your last part about nostr vs Bitcoin, I don’t know if it’s a fair comparison. Bitcoin has been going since 2009 while nostr is fairly recent.
I’m saying Nostr doesn’t have the qualities we’re actually dreaming of when it comes to communication we can’t censor. This isn’t the bitcoin to crypto.. somehow the alt coin came first. And so maybe usability is simply better at this point. I haven’t seen a single post on Damus that someone couldn’t have posted on Twitter (aside from porn spam which I’m sure we all love). I think Twitter and lighting would just be better. Again, maybe I’m just a hater
I’ve seen multiple accounts be suspended for x number of days (or permanently) on Twitter for tweeting about subjects that twitter’s team deem inappropriate. I haven’t seen this happen on nostr yet.
I've also seen accounts being suspended for speaking against Elon’s decisions. Again, no CEO on nostr.
That’s a big proof of concept for censorship resistance here.
In nostr you write a post and send it to a server. Relays can accept it or censor it. The latter: you just make your own relay. But there’s no cost to you or anyone else doing this, there’s no proof of work. It can be meddled with (and again, sure, you could create your own network) but you’re (1) choosing to ignore what’s supposedly on the server already (aka censoring) or (2) it’s cheap to create hostile relays that collude. It’s probably better for free speech than Twitter, but god it’s so painful as a base layer. At least to me.
Has there been cases of relays censoring notes ? Or this is just theoretical ?
From what I understand you could create one and do it
If users figured out that my relay was doing this, wouldn’t they just stop using it and use other relays instead ? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of having a relay ?
Ye, if they knew, they would. Defeat the point in what sense? On a technical level, why not just have one global relay then? If no one would ever use a relay nefariously then surely one would just be enough?
If you only have on relay for everyone, then how is your network decentralized ? Hard to be censorship resistant with a centralized entity
Ok. I agree fully. I’m
Or advocating for one relay, but you said what’s the point of having a relay if people can just unfollow it? I’m saying it so cheap to make relays that “good” relays can easily turn into “bad” relays.
But check out https://habla.news/ for example. I think it’ll highlight one of the most powerful things here.
Damus (and other clients) are using the nostr protocol for twitter-like functions, but habla uses it for articles. And there’s other clients too (imagine something like instagram).
Across all these services you can use the same key, the same account. And all the data exists simultaneously across all the relays you publish to.
Agree. There's so much that can be build on an open protocol. Like how interesting was TCP/IP in the first couple years? How about Unix?
It doesn't matter if it's perfectly analogous to a cryptocurrency. But to go that route, one could argue there wasn't a lot of innovation in #Bitcoin or #Ethereum for a couple years; just bug fixes and "so, uh, hay guys".
I don’t think you can compare TCP/IP to Nostr, or bitcoin. They’re just completely different things
No ads is good. No algorithm? Do you get suggested anything outside of what other users suggest? Or shitshow that is the search tab? No ceo is good too.
No algorithm is key. Everything is very negative on Twitter because that’s what is pushed by the algorithm.
In my experience, on nostr people are kinder with eachother. They can express themselves without being judged/insulted
Algorithms aren’t bad. We use them everyday, whether it’s Twitter, youtube, Google, or even conversation. Twitter’s sucks, but I don’t think algorithms are bad in general
If the algorithm was used to push content you like sure. In reality twitter's algorithm is there to ensure you spend more screen time and spend money on the ads that are presented to you.
I don’t see that as a net positive. But it’s just my opinion
An algorithm can be written to cater to what you like. Naturally that will make you stay more. It’s the same as someone you like recommending some else.
I get that. Still doesn’t make the Twitter algorithm a net good for the user experience.
Take the Instagram algo for example, it’s been shown to create mental health issues in adolescent girls…
And I don’t think it’s the same as someone I like recommending something. That person isn’t making me feel bad so I can consume more: they are just showing me something interesting
I’m not disagreeing with you. Their algorithms can be harmful. It doesn’t make algorithms bad per se though. I don’t want to get into the psychology of humans, but you can easily get sucked into things that are bad for your mental health just from the people you follow or listen to.
I’m just saying, never having an algorithm is limiting and a waste to any social app. A good algorithm will show you things or people you like, or things that you might not like but challenge you in a healthy way. This is all very subjective, but I’ve discovered a lot of incredible people, music and channels because of algorithms on YouTube, for example.
Open protocols *could* have algorithms, but you would be allowed to *choose* them.
Entire books are written about how big tech manipulates people with algorithms, over which you have no control.
Yes YouTube might give you some new content that you like, but it's mostly going to keep you in your bubble.
Already Nostr has a way to "swap" all of your follows for someone else's set, in just a few clicks.
You could swap who you follow on whatever app you like... And sure “open protocols” don’t have to have algorithms, or they could have them and you could choose between them, as you say. But, again, that’s potentially the same with any app… an implementation like Damus could have an algorithm that’s “good”, or one that manipulates you just like the big tech companies. Anyone or any corporation can make a Damus… and by the way Damus does it already. Just go to the search tab and check the top right filter… Damus already chooses for you what you’re exposed to.
What’s there by default is not a choice made for you by devs. You can « edit » the global feed as you wish
For me personally, I find that there’s a big part of personal responsibility on nostr. I had to follow more accounts I found interesting and interacted with those accounts regularly in order to get something interesting out of the experience.
You can let the Twitter algorithm do that for you, or you can do it yourself on nostr. It takes some effort but it’s rewarding.
I totally agree with you for music on YouTube or Apple Music. Definitely discovered lots of music that way.
Go to the search tab on Damus. In the top right there’s a filter where you can pick which relays you see posts from. For me half of them were unchecked. The unchecked ones were mostly spam and crap, but it just shows that (1) the Damus developers could choose to censor or promote whatever the fuck they like to their users and (2) relays by definition can promote crap or censor crap. Who knows what that could be used for in the future…
I really like the fact that I can toggle which relays I use in the global feed. I have the nostr.wine filter on. All the other relays are off. Again it comes back to personal responsibility.
If the devs choose to promote wtf they like, you can always choose other relays