Nostr Web Client

I've had a LOT of conversations with people about Nostr, really people who are aware of Nostr but don't use it.

There are a few things that come up.

* General admiration for Nostr and how it does tons of interesting things in terms of tech. It's way more flexible than ATprotocol or ActivityPub.

* Frustration with the way user accounts / logins / keys work. It's very confusing if you're not somebody who already understands crypto. Mostly it's confusing because of how we talk about it. If we tell people, here's your magic user text, paste this in places and you'll be magically logged in, they love it. If we try and explain custody and wallets and keys and browser extensions and all the ways you can login with Nostr, their eyes glaze over.

* Not feeling like it's a place for them. Everybody is talking about Bitcoin and Nostr. Most folks don't care very much about the underlying tools or how payments work. They want to talk about their interests, surfing, food, travel, their friends. or ten million other things. They see Nostr as a bitcoin place. Most people have either no opinion or a negative opinion of bitcoin because somebody tried to evangelize it too hard.

* Zaps, folks love zaps. I've heard from board members and the executives of Bluesky that they want zaps. Folks don't like bitcoin and bitcoin content but they do want the functionality. The problem is when creators come to Nostr, they only get zaps for content that is about nostr or bitcoin. There's no good way to build and sustain themselves with other content.

* Algorithms - we all have a love hate relationship with algorithms. We say we don't want them, but we choose to use systems with algorithms. We have them in nostr with DVM's and it works. But it's not well integrated in to the apps and most feed services via DVM's are way too slow. The algorithm helps people be seen, grow an audience, find their people, keep being engaged. We built the proof of concept but didn't make it in to a good product.

These things that keep people from Nostr are fixable. What i'm going at with my podcast is to build a larger movement, Nostr is a solution, but people on Nostr aren't my intended audience. ;-D

O Expedicionário 3mo ago 💬 1

Nostr is for freedom and self-sovereignty, and those are and will always be more inconvenient relative to centralized solutions. That’s why Nostr will always be niche. Becoming mainstream means facing preassure from regulators and governments. With current relay centralization that would be bad news for Nostr, for freedom and self-sovereignty. As a niche protocol Nostr will never die, becoming a relevant source of freedom for the average Joe, still a long way to go, if desirable at all.

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Discussion

JOE2o 3mo ago 💬 1

This logic only holds if the protocol is financial sustainable. As of now Nostr is heavily subsidised, to the tune of more than $1m per month.

O Expedicionário 3mo ago 💬 1

Interesting! What’s the source of such a number?

JOE2o 3mo ago 💬 1

Just quick cobbling together of numbers openly shared by OpenSats, HRW, &otherstuff crew, others. And some conservative assumptions for ongoing investments from VCs like ten31, Hivemind.

The true amount is likely much higher.

O Expedicionário 3mo ago 💬 1

Interesting. I would imagine that the hope is to revert this trend. Nostr is still not really appealing even for freedom projects, libraries and maintainers, so there’s a long way to go even for a niche protocol. And as you said economics will tend to make sense over time for all actors involved, for good or worse.

JOE2o 3mo ago

Yes. How do Nostr devs earn a living if not from investment and grants? You need millions of people excited to pay at regular intervals for what these devs are developing. That's a tall order.