How do we scale Nostr?

“Unpopular opinion: Nostr CAN'T scale to be what people want it to be. It's an all-to-all broadcast, which scales like O(n²). It will collapse in its own success.

Nostr relays are like sidechains and altcoins. It's attempting to solve an O(n²) scaling problem by having multiple copies of the same thing. It leads to Balkanization where you can't see content from or message some people.

Blockchains of blockchains were dumb and this is dumb in exactly the same way, and I can't believe all of you failed your algorithms classes.”

- Bob McElrath

So this begs the question, how does Nostr scale long term? Or do we simply expect 2 of 3 dominant relays in the long term?

cc nostr:npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6 nostr:npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s nostr:npub18ams6ewn5aj2n3wt2qawzglx9mr4nzksxhvrdc4gzrecw7n5tvjqctp424 nostr:npub1pgh3nhq6rpte9sasxah36luewy54azfjjekrj7f45hwa69z35fdqfdrs38 nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z nostr:npub18c556t7n8xa3df2q82rwxejfglw5przds7sqvefylzjh8tjne28qld0we7

https://x.com/bobmcelrath/status/1828763959001804956

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Discussion

the outbox model helps with scaling and decentralization where small community relays and personal relays will flourish. dude seems like he's suffering from NDS.

So the idea is have Nostr relays for specific communities? Your point is that people are comparing Nostr to existing centralized system and assuming that Nostr needs to scale the same way.

I guess my counterpoint would be that lots of people have been excited about small siloed networks in the past, such as mesh network, but in practice they never scaled to the masses.

But maybe that’s fine? Idk what the end vision of folks are for Nostr. Nostr can be whatever people want it to be. A DLC oracle broadcaster, private messenger, X alternative. I’m just curious what people’s vision for it is.

It's not relays for specific communities, although that is also possible. It's just following people wherever they are.

What is NDS?

Nostr Derangement Syndrome

Correct

The internet is Balkanized.

The Balkans are Balkanized.

Seeing everything, all the time is an unreasonable expectation. Nostr is a protocol not a platform.