in my relay #orly there is a spider that, based on the first and second degree follows of the designated owner npubs can fetch all the events of first and/or second degree, and it can either just grab the stuff that helps you find people (relay lists, profiles, follows/mutes) or it can just scrape for them. i didn't make it automatically use the relay lists it has in the db to keep it simple but it would be simple to add that.

if you paid for one relay, and every 10 minutes it was fetching events from everywhere, a) it would be worth paying for and b) everyone would find everything.

but it requires auth to really work.

That's a user's problem. If they're using an outbox that does not accept their notes or does not have them all, you're just kicking the problem down the road for them. That's why they should pick 3, and make sure those 3 relays have their events (not just be all lossy, with no retries etc).

EG: If someone has damus in their relay list, but they don't post there half the time. Sorry they're invisible now. They gotta pick relays wisely. There should also be a relay list, for umbrels, and filters and etc, get that crap out of nip65.

Anyway, I ran a quick analysis on my follows relays, only NIP65 (not kind3), and normalizing case and trailing slash:

Calculating optimal relay set using greedy algorithm...

Total follows with relay lists: 726

Greedy set cover algorithm:

============================

1. wss://relay.damus.io (+485 follows, 66.8% total)

2. wss://nos.lol (+ 95 follows, 79.9% total)

3. wss://nostr.wine (+ 38 follows, 85.1% total)

4. wss://purplepag.es (+ 23 follows, 88.3% total)

5. wss://relay.mostr.pub (+ 13 follows, 90.1% total)

6. wss://wot.utxo.one (+ 7 follows, 91.0% total)

7. wss://theforest.nostr1.com (+ 5 follows, 91.7% total)

8. wss://premium.primal.net (+ 4 follows, 92.3% total)

9. wss://bitcoiner.social (+ 2 follows, 92.6% total)

10. wss://creatr.nostr.wine (+ 2 follows, 92.8% total)

11. wss://filter.nostr.wine (+ 2 follows, 93.1% total)

12. wss://inbox.relays.land (+ 2 follows, 93.4% total)

13. wss://nostr.mom (+ 2 follows, 93.7% total)

14. wss://nostr-pub.wellorder.net (+ 2 follows, 93.9% total)

15. ws://4bluxabinr4kyukywrhkgxaqppbqo6hh6zb5z42h7kdoqkju4jbqq3id.onion:4869 (+ 1 follows, 94.1% total)

16. wss://37.202.159.214:4869 (+ 1 follows, 94.2% total)

17. wss://auth.nostr1.com (+ 1 follows, 94.4% total)

18. wss://bostr.bitcointxoko.com (+ 1 follows, 94.5% total)

19. wss://cfrelay.puhcho.workers.dev (+ 1 follows, 94.6% total)

20. wss://fragarach.nostr1.com (+ 1 follows, 94.8% total)

Optimal relay set covers 688/726 follows (94.8%)

Uncovered follows: 38