Gen Z, when scrolling on social media apps like Instagram, are looking for “inspiration”, or something that speaks to them.
For Gen Z, “inspiration” comes in the form of personalized feeds.
Nostr needs to be a source of inspiration.
#grownostr
Discussion
It HAS to become more than talking about bitcoin and patting ourselves on the backs for being on nostr. The protocol’s ability to be any social media feed, and to hybridize any mix of those, and to be something not even invented yet, is so powerful but everyone is stuck on self congratulation.
But social media apps right now are not getting personalized feeds, they are getting lock your brain into their ad making big data nonsense.
They are not incentivized to give you a good product with a personalized feed, they are incentivized to brain wash and get you addicted to their platform.
Nostr has the tools in place to create personalizations, we just need people to build it.
As they say: Build it and they will come.
Totally agree. What’s interesting though is that as a cohort, gen z does not mind giving their data up in order to receive personalized feeds. It’s a compromise they’re willing to make.
My point is that in order for Nostr to capture the attention of this generation, personalization needs to be built into clients.
I can't directly speak to the Gen Z crew as I am too old for that (lol) but I can say one thing.
It's not so much for the personalized feed that they care for, its the dopamine hit they take when they are sucked into the psychological warfare that these apps inflict on them in a totally predatory nature.
Right now my personal feed on Nostr is to just follow people I want to follow. Apps like Instagram attack you with posts for engagement and likes that are not even related to your friends. Same with the "For you" feed on Twitter.
I am all for a personalized feed, but we need to make sure it's done in the right way and not in the way that Zuck et al are doing.
With the permissionless open nature of Nostr this can be achieved and there can be competing "algorithms" to create the best personal feeds.
I also prefer to only see posts from people I choose to follow. However, if we’re trying to get most of the world to adopt this technology, then we need to understand what it is THEY want in a social media app. Not necessarily what you and I want. And what THEY want is curated content. Gen Z is the most important market to address for any hope of « hyperbitcoinization ». Period.
The beauty of Nostr is that some clients can choose to cater to that audience while others can stay barebones just for us :) we now have choice!
So the philosophical question that I have now is, have the Gen Z crew been influenced by big data to make them THINK that they want these types of feeds, or is this something they truly do want? Have our minds been destroyed by big data and we shall choose to give the options for staying a slave to the algorithms, or should we be training their minds to stop this? If this is even something that they want to be stopped.