Replying to Avatar Big Bad John

It's almost always a mistake to use Bitcoin as a way to discuss web concepts... at least in any positive way.

Pubky is not a derivative of Nostr; it is the product independent R&D that began before Nostr existed. If anything, I have may have had more influence on Nostr than it on Pubky...

That's all irrelevant of course, there were many key-based systems, many social networks, and many other contortions of the web long before Nostr or Pubky came along.

So, unlike Bitcoin, this isn't a case where new tech fixed a huge problem with a novel design, and then spawned a bunch of opportunistic clones. That is nonsense and incompatible with reality.

First, Nostr hasn't proven anything beyond the herding capabilities of the Bitcoin cult and influence of Jack Dorsey and, to a lesser degree, Matt Odell.

While those things have been impressive, this has only shown us there may be a market for a perpetual hackathon sandbox culture. Nostr has not changed the world. It has not solved problems for anyone at all. The Nostr hacker community has not shipped a killer app, not even a single killer tool for devs, no more growth, no thriving startup industry.

There is literally no single significant aspect of Nostr code or the movement that is now improving the lives of many people in a way they did not already have. The use case of Nostr is merely the potential of Nostr, and the cult's belief in that potential.

(I know this is all going to seem very harsh, but it is also sober and healthy to consider such perspectives if they ring true...)

Second, our work at Synonym is not easy and there is no big payoff. Doing our job well means securing funding for wildly speculative research, providing the world with a bunch of free open source tools, planning and managing multiple teams, demonstrating the plan by actually implementing products and services, all while outsiders are more incentivized to ignorantly detract from your work, than to support it. Then, even if we end up being correct, our best chance at profit is to fairly compete as a generic hosting provider and indexer service.

So, I think you'll find my hinges are all intact, but attached to a door you are too scared to open.

If you support the ideal of a real free-market society, then at least do some research before dismissing the work of dozens of people across multiple years.

Our work is fucking cool and meant to help literally everyone, that means you, so please stop being so ignorant about it.

It seems unfortunate that there is friction between the communities of these projects. But maybe that’s what inspires some to really dig in and try to outbuild each other.. I can see it both ways.

I’m here on Nostr because of the community that is here and I like the tingles I get when people say “censorship resistant”. I value sovereignty and freedom above all other issues, and I’ve been around long enough to know that the terrain we inhabit is always shifting, becoming, and crumbling.

I don’t have the technical understanding to be able to really grasp how either of these systems work, Nostr or Pubky. What I really need is someone who can skillfully translate the technicals into a picture or graspable framework. Much like the authors/speakers are doing for Bitcoin, take Jeff Booth for example. I’ve watched him get ever more skillful at being able to express his perspective such that I’m not only able to see it, but to really embody it, and be able to “see from it”

I need the same for these other freedom technologies, and I would greatly appreciate it. I imagine there are many like me.

I hope this message is helpful.

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TheVladCostea does a decent job as well as The Aaron Day show.