Nostr Web Client

Question: If nothing is curated, how do we find things?

Answer: Nostr relays that function like magazines.

Each of your contributors gets whitelisted to post on the relay. They are contracted to post X times per week. Readers just read from the relay.

Nostr clients need to support this UX. nostr:npub1jlrs53pkdfjnts29kveljul2sm0actt6n8dxrrzqcersttvcuv3qdjynqn nostr:npub1wmr34t36fy03m8hvgl96zl3znndyzyaqhwmwdtshwmtkg03fetaqhjg240

https://tadaima.bearblog.dev/if-nothing-is-curated-how-do-we-find-things/

fiatjaf 7mo ago

You're not alone in thinking that: nostr:nevent1qgsrhuxx8l9ex335q7he0f09aej04zpazpl0ne2cgukyawd24mayt8gppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qqsqqqzk6ac2vkmm6kqjpc9ea7ph5pttfuvhdjr3ky07a6sntsvmptsteez6l nostr:npub1raustrrh5gjwt03zdj8syn9vmt2dwsv9t467m8c3gua636uxu89svgdees

Turns out relays are a great abstraction, infinitely flexible and easy to use and reason about. Relay feeds and other types of custom relay usage could be the thing that differentiates Nostr from all other Twitter clones and are vastly underexplored today.

One example that does one form of "curation" today is nostr:nevent1qqsw0dtkdzl4xt9y2g7u98dr38edq5uehnrpeuu3gm6vrysm6t8p5wgzyqalp33lewf5vdq847t6te0wvnags0gs0mu72kz8938tn24wlfze6cpafg2

Try also wss://algo.utxo.one, but we need more!

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Discussion

τέχνη 7mo ago

Jumble is really a great client for this experience.

One thing I’m unsure of though is the access to articles. You already thought of this with the “-“ tag but I’m curious how that would work in practice. What guarantees brands need to support themselves financially.

Would love to work this out and onboard a publication (and it’s contributors) this way

richard 7mo ago

there is no guarantee at all, "-" tag tries to go against one of nostr's strengths which is censorship resistance so it shouldnt be relied on.

τέχνη 7mo ago

So there are no “pay 2 read” relays? Only “pay 2 post” right?

So business models will have to account for that

richard 7mo ago

there are "pay 2 read" relays, but putting posts behind a paywall is the tricky part of it. the true value you're paying for in that kind of relay is the curation and anything else they may offer

fiatjaf 7mo ago

https://zapbox.fiatjaf.com/ is kind of pay2read.

If someone is browsing your relay directly instead of just specific notes or specific pubkeys you can also serve ads by just hosting them as notes.

fiatjaf 7mo ago

There is no guarantee of anything anywhere, much less on the internet. Most good faith relays will probably respect "-" (and currently all the big ones do), but "piracy" exists and I'm not even saying that's a bad thing.

I don't believe in "intellectual property" myself, but "-" is not (only) for preventing copy, it's for making intentions explicit and keeping content and boundaries organized, which benefits everybody most of the time.

richard 7mo ago

i get that, but i feel like nostr is one of the last options you would consider to host your paywalled content considering how the portability of data seems to be designed at its core.

and eventually the goal is to have more small relays and less big ones in favor of the outbox model, so in this sense i think the decision of taking "-" into account will be for users to make, not big brother relays.

so yeah i don't know if most people will respect "-", it seems like its never been easier to relay signed data though.

τέχνη 7mo ago

Yeah there’s a lot of open questions. Given certain limitations, maybe publications should be just a profile, and maybe they need a new note type that allows for “multi-sig” notes to include the authors and editors.

τέχνη 7mo ago

Or maybe publications see the “anti-censorship” angle as a benefit and just adjust their monetization models accordingly. Either way it needs exploring with real publications with existing business models.

Râu Cao ⚡ 7mo ago

This has been on my mind since I asked that question, because extending my blog software with support for publications is still my goal. However, after observing and dabbling in Nostr dev and specs for about a year now, I'm more convinced than before that relays are the wrong abstraction for publications. I haven't engaged in more discussion yet, because I was both trying to solidify my understanding of why, as well as come up with and implement what I think is a decent event-based solution.

That said, I think relays could be useful for indexing/curating publications themselves (while users should also be able to index/curate them separate from relays). Either way, demo and article incoming (soon-ish).

τέχνη 7mo ago

Are you think publications should be a keypair but then articles within publications should be a “multi-sig” note of some kind?

I think what you describe can still maintain the “locality” of relays. Relays as “places” abstraction is powerful

Râu Cao ⚡ 7mo ago

No, I think multi-sig is overkill. Relays are places, sure, like you can hand over a newspaper on a town square.

laoc42 7mo ago

Cc nostr:nprofile1qqs06gywary09qmcp2249ztwfq3ue8wxhl2yyp3c39thzp55plvj0sgprdmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdakj74c23x6

Where can we find the most current approach of project Alexandria?

You mentioned that the nip repo does not have your current nip hosted

Silberengel 7mo ago

Good question. I'll update the wiki page and post a link. Liminal also asked for an update.

Râu Cao ⚡ 7mo ago

Please share here as well then. Thank you. 🙏

fiatjaf 7mo ago

I'll wait for you to solidify your understanding, and maybe I don't know what a "publication" entails anyway (because I have no experience with that) and that specific thing is better done with a dedicated keypair or something, but that doesn't change the fact that relays are the unique Nostr superpower (and that we don't have any other superpower, so we should use that one wisely).

fiatjaf 7mo ago

In other words: if relays are not the right abstraction for publications I'm interested in learning what new things relays are a good abstraction for -- and how these new things can be better than old style publications.

Keychat 7mo ago

A relay is a printing press, not a magazine editor.

τέχνη 7mo ago

On second thought, I think a relay is just a place, as mentioned in nevent below. The relay is the pub where the Inklings met.

nostr:nevent1qqsdpewtwjmx6a7mra9dy8g0zdfupsw26w9cyv0cnps50hryvepn4fspz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq32amnwvaz7tm9v3jkutnwdaehgu3wd3skueqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qzrthwden5te0dehhxtnvdakqzvw356

Keychat 7mo ago

The comparison of relays to printing presses is made specifically in contrast to magazine editors. Relay operators are usually developers, and their role is vastly different from that of content editors—they are entirely different professions.

fiatjaf 7mo ago

This doesn't even make sense as an analogy.

But I wouldn't have expected a reasonable take from you anyway given the way keychat deals with relays.

τέχνη 7mo ago

Keychat does something wrong with relays? I really like the setup because I thought it just creates a sustainable business model for them