The sentiment of needing to differentiate is a critical element of what Nostr needs to succeed. There are lots of problems with existing platforms and therefore lots of opportunities to differentiate and innovate. Talk to people who still use them to find the opportunity spaces.
The community also needs to address two other aspects in order to see widespread adoption.
Based on the conversations two weeks ago there’s still work to do to make Nostr a cool place for everyone to hangout. There are some nascent components for avoiding content one does not want to see, but those still are not enough to protect against harassment primarily experienced by women on this network. If you want a man cave with a side of porn - cool then the status quo works, but if you want to see widespread adoption, then additional NIPs or work on existing NIPs is required to allow people to protect themselves from bad actors.
Bitcoin may be different than the other shitcoins, but the general public sees it all as crypto. If thats the only content they see here - they will pass. That’s why we launched the Creator Residency and Journalism Accelerator. It’s also an opportunity to test micropayments for content creation & journalism as well as a way to reframe Lightning.
A subset of people will also pass if the main selling point is say anything you want. This latter piece is bc most platforms show you content beyond your network today, so the assumption is if Nostr has free speech they will have to see everything. But that is not how it works (except for the aggregation feeds). If the community spends a bit more time talking about choosing your feed and a bit less about free speech - the adoption should shift.
In both instances branding matters, specifically how we talk about what already exists in Nostr. Updating how we talk about Nostr can go a long way to increasing adoption.
