The reason people either don’t join Nostr or try it once and give up is because the onboarding process is a clusterfuck, and every client feels like an unfinished side project. The only reason a subset of freedom maximalist bitcoiners are willing to put up with it is because suffering bad UX is in our DNA.
Discussion
It's getting much easier to join then it was last year. It just takes time for the developers to keep improving Nostr. They are doing an excellent job.
Lots of work going on I agree, but key stats are showing as lower now than at this point last year. As in Nostr looks to have shrunk.
That's probably because users came here to check things out than left.
Social media eventually gets boring. In fact I'm getting bored of nostr already. They need to keep adding more features like finding others based on gender, profession, hobbies, etc or relationship status etc
Facebook was one of the best social medias out there because of all the features out there.
I'm sure they will keep adding features but until then the userbase will stay small.
I think the main issue is that there are core features that are either impossible or very hard.
- Assured post deletion
- Assured account deletion
- Accurate follower counts across clients
- DMs you can send with confidence the other person can actually see them
- Username and password login option (can be abstracted, like Warpcast or Bluesky)
Nostr has none of these. My feeling is that it's just impossible to scale without a certain subset of core features like this. As in there is nothing you can offer users in return for not having these, you just have to tick these boxes—or accept that the network will always be niche. Niche can be good in certain contexts though, this is just the town square one.
All of those are business opportunities.
Deletion is likely a false aim. Almost nothing gets permanently deleted on the internet if someone decides to keep it, except in a datacenter fire or a similar backup loss situation. Self-hosting your content on your own auth-protected relay and not broadcasting widely gives you deletion in the same scope as running your own website. Then you have a sliding dial of trusting some third party where you weigh the service pricing against your requirements in exchange for less expertise required of you.
DMs are solvable by a network of DM-specialized relays that maintain awareness of their peers and a client that knows how to talk to them.
Username/pass logins are not constrained by technical requirements but liability. The user base needs to be big enough to pay for the legal protection of such a service provider, who is in essence a password manager. The current attitude of ‘here you go, but we’re not reliable’ is especially cringe for such a service. In a business setting, this can be done by a central authority per business entity.
As for follower counts. I know they matter, but they don’t have to be global or for everyone. Need an accurate number? Get it from a DVM or a service that will count it for a fee, because it requires a targeted crawl.
Deletion is not a false aim, though. I feel the "nothing gets permanently deleted on the internet" has always been a flawed argument. This is emotional more than technical
There is a threshold over which most people will consider the deletion obligation to have been fulfilled, even though they will not be aware of the nuts and bolts (as technical people will). And that threshold is what matters.
ATProto does meet that threshold, with deletion at the PDS level, even though the relays make take time to delete or overwrite the event (ATProto relays are non-archival by design.) So on ATProto you can have a button that says "delete this post" and it'll be *accurate enough*. Or delete my account, the same, *accurate enough*.
Nostr doesn't meet that threshold, it's well under, and the result is that most average users will feel emotionally vulnerable. You have to have a button that says "request delete", which is a total freak-out phrase. The average user will become intensely aware that they don't really own their posts, someone else does and they have to ask that someone else politely to remove them if desired. Again, that's freak-out territory.
Also most cases of post deletion are deletes before anyone has seen the post, so the "things can be screenshotted" argument is also null. (Plus only 0.001% of users are screenshot worthy people.)
Basically for today's user you have to be over that threshold, even though of course you'll never get to a place where there is true and all-encompassing deletion.
We arrive in the same place. All deletions need to be honored by someone. The assurance of trust can be provided by a relay or a relay and client combo on nostr in a very similar manner than in other places in exchange for some decentralization (and you keep quite a lot of the decentralization on nostr compared to elsewhere). Someone who considers deletion essential to peace of mind would consider this a service. Hence, a business model.
But a business should be taken seriously and lots of things built on nostr are more showcases than services and barely any terms of service exist. The trust is low because we seem to be in a sandbox. The fact that the sandbox sits in an open square is indeed a dichotomy.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph.
If we solve a real problem , people will figure out a way to join no matter how bad onboarding.. flip side is true too :-)
What are some real problems that (a) nostr is in a special position to solve (b) if solved a large crowd will rush in regardless of UX pains
There are plenty (a) but not (b) and vice versa, but how about both?
The problem that we are currently focused on is censor ship resistance .. a noble cause but appeals to few - and rightly so , we already have attracted people who value freedom .. they are excited about nostr even though initiation may not be easiest !
But for 99 percent of the population "censorship " is not really a problem .. no one in my real life circle has ever been censored by X or Insta :-)
The key problem that nostr solves for masses is - one singular password for entire internet - but the appreciation for such schema becomes apparrent only when we have diverse set of applications .. for example banking , vacations rentals , travels, ride share etc . Till we have many such solutions , the appeal to normies wrt a "singular log in" is very limited .. so , they assume nostr is another social media .. which they have 100 options .. and frankly no one wants another social tool (:-
And building many apps shall take time .. (obviously) ..
So meanwhile , the killer app is zaps .. it attracts creatives .. not only as sole money making objective ..but recognition of their work .. additionally , creatives love freedom .. kinda good overlap with anti censorship enthusiasts ..
The interim goal, should, thus be , attracting creatives .. some suggestions are
- we should not expect creatives to be #nostrOnly .. give them tools to share their creative work to all the platforms .. for example , every time they note on nostr .. the note should automatically go to their chosen playmtforms .. x , insta , tiktok etc .. so nostr kinda becomes their freedom content management layer ..
- let them bring their work to nostr without having to copy their media again .. for example thousands of podcasts , hundreds of public domain books , music can be quickly made accessible through nostr ..
- subscriptions management - like Patreon but much more .. for example , a podcaster can't even send a newsletter to their subscribers on Spotify .. on youtube , I don't even know who are the people subscribing to my channel ! .. if creatives could move their subs to nostr for a wholistic subscriber management , they will do so at all their exposure platforms ..
- integration with creative apps - publish podcasts directly from audacity .. submit a longform directly from substack .. there are 100s of creative apps being rewritten with AI .. embed nostr natively into them ..
The point is - put yourself into CREATIVE shoes :-) .. and solve painpoints in their workflow ..
I appreciate the long and passionate response.
I think with zaps something that's often overlooked is the fact that zaps don't scale well on iOS, and for creatives the iOS audience is by far the most important one. X, Rumble and others would all implement zaps on posts (including USDT variants) if they could. They all have the rails; technically this is not a difficult thing to do.
Apple doesn't allow zaps on posts without enabling in-app purchase, and when in-app purchase is enabled Apple generally takes a 30% cut. Patreon for comparison is only 8%.
It's also very difficult for people to acquire sats in many parts of the world, and in many states in the US. Even Primal, with it's built in wallet and in-app purchase enabled, cannot allow users from New York, Canada and other places to purchase sats in the app.
You add these things up and zaps really does not scale well for creators. It's a tricky challenge and one that isn't talked about much.
Zaps are icing on the cake .. a great one :-)
The core idea is to first become the backend of creative economy / ecosystem .... not compete with platforms ..enable the creatives ground up ..
Let's say we focus on four big ones ..
Podcasters
Musicians
Video shows
Writers
Each have a bunch of tools in creative process , collaboration needs cuz nothing gets built in isolation, content storage , getting the word out , publishing , subscriptions , revenue consolidation ..
Nostr should be integrated into every aspect such that it becomes a "no brainer " for each of the creative streams ..
The good things is most platforms just do bare bones for creatives .. cuz their perspective is - creatives will automatically come if they lock in the eyeballs .. nostr should let them have eyeballs but capture the hands that create .. exact opposite of conventional wisdom :-)