Nostr Web Client

Amplifying this for critical discussion.

Who will run relays in the future, and is there anything that Nostr as a protocol can tweak to improve future relay decentralization?

nostr:note17jqv3typtv2va0gq8s2xl7fn86v4z5t98sxyyawrleqkuqae89sqkw93l0

corndalorian 1y ago

The argument that it isn’t decentralized doesn’t make sense to me as a user. The client/relay design of Nostr makes my user data redundant, verifiable, and ownable.

Redundant: once signed, my events can be broadcast to as many relays as I want, and they don’t even have to be broadcast by me. Anyone can broadcast them, and I can broadcast anyone else’s.

Verifiable: No matter where my events are broadcast/stored, they are verifiable by your client by my public key, and vice versa.

Ownable: I can use any combination of public, private, shared or personally owned relays, and all my data is redundant across them all. I can locally backup my entire event history and rebroadcast it any time I want.

Who will run the relays? Whoever can, and if centralized relays become more problematic then the data can be easily broadcast to additional relays.

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Discussion

TKay 1y ago

I agree with this line of thinking.

The identity is already detached from the relay runner. That’s the key to this whole thing.

Since we accomplished this part, the rest doesn’t matter much. Not because there won’t be problems, but because the problems are relatively easy to solve.

corndalorian 1y ago

I wonder if the criticism comes from having a false assumption that there needs to be a single global state/view of “the network.” Nostr is different from Bitcoin in this way, and there is no single global view of “the nostr.” There is no global consensus that needs to be maintained.

TKay 1y ago

I think that’s what’s happening here. And that was actually mentioned on the same panel iirc.

I always assumed that nostr will be random pockets of data that exist where the people who are interested in those will be able to involved in them.

Like the pocket of data that is for Japan, could be completely isolated from one in Greenland. And that’s totally fine.

Not everyone needs to have access to all the notes, everywhere, at all times.

corndalorian 1y ago

Right, and in that example data in Japan could easily find its way to Greenland if some user happens to broadcast it there. It may then only exist on those 2 relays but that may be the only people who care to know it exists in the first place and that’s perfectly fine.

brito 1y ago

That's the beauty of the thing. Local communities can have their own networks going, the same person can participate with the same identity either on private networks or public ones.

Doesn't matter, same protocol on both sides. The messages can even arrive on paper and delivered by pigeons. They are still verifiable as being from a specific identity.

That's really the future.

corndalorian 1y ago

💯 I have a meme for that 🤣

Radokama Grandmaster Splat 1y ago

Nostrich

brito 1y ago

NOSTR!

Martin 1y ago

Sure, everyone can (and should) run their own relays and store their own data.

But all those personal relays will not be known to anyone else, all our clients still only connect to a small list of well known central relays - and these relays can only be run by huge companies - if Nostr ever were to get as big as Twitter, it would grow by far more than 12TB per day.