Nostr sucks, I agree, but what is the alternative?
Nostr: “A web with authenticity where every note is signed.”
This is not true, and whoever wrote this doesn't understand what a Digital Signauture is.
Digital Signatures are made with unique text files called "Private Keys". They are not biometric keys and do not require a human to put them in a computer process.
A machine can make a digitally signed message and post it to Nostr; it is trivially easy to do because keys (which are merely strings of text [https://medium.com/swlh/why-america-cant-regulate-bitcoin-8c77cee8d794]) can be assigned as variables in any programming language.
The undercurrent thinking here is the Statist obsession with everyone on earth being uniquely identifiable by an ID Card of some sort, "To stop the Trolls and Spammers". Sorry; Nostr does not fix spam.
Nostr: "A web that's machine payable by default."
This line shows that the person who wrote it doesn't understand Public Key Encryption or how Bitcoin works.
If a machiine can pay money with Bitcoin (sign a message with a Private Key) automatically, why can't a machine make an unlimited number of spam posta (yes, "Posta") on Nostr using a Private key to sign and post a message?
The answer is there is nothing stopping machines from posting on Nostr. It also costs nothing to post on Nostr (but costs something for people to run nodes for other people who don't pay; a fundamental impediment to built in anti-Spam). Oh dear.
There is a lot of breathless talk about Nostr, and thoughtful enthusiasm in general is good, because without enthusiasm, developers (who as Will just said are not being paid) will not work on it.
The direction of travel is essentially correct on a very high level, but direction of travel and wishful thinking is not a destination, and without rational thinking taking what things actually are, and economics into account at the most basic level (that machines can sign messages, and authenticity doesn't come from clearsigning text with a Private Key [https://medium.com/@beautyon_/beach-boy-bitcoin-64f62bed4c7e] and that it costs money to run nodes and scale and a great many other things...) it is not possible for the fantasies of Nostr fanatics to come true.
Primal may be on to something with its integrated Bitcoin wallet. That's the single thing that makes me post "here". It remains to be seen what comes next, and I'm certainly paying attention to the software that gets released. Less impressive is the gushing nonsense of fanboys I'm afraid.
Discussion
Nostr doesn't suck. It's an idea in progress and it is very inspiring how it has been taken up and is being worked on.
Anyone who expects these things to come out of the box fully formed is not thinking straight. Unfortunately, in a world where censorship is a very big and real problem, people (including me) sometimes have little patience for the breathless nonsens masquerading as thinking.
Nostr should exist, just like Mastedon. BBses, Napster, Gnutella, BitTorrent were all steps in a progressoin towards an unstoppable and super efficient network (BitTorrent) that solved a very big problem leading to the ultimate question:
"What are Your Latest \/\/ 4 |^ 3 z"
I can't say where on the BBS to BitTorrent scale Nostr is, or even what its final destination is. What I can say is claiming that it can stop spam "Becuz digital signat00z" is ridiculous and very silly.
I don't remember seeing those claims, but yes, you're right.
One way Nostr helps fixing spam is by making it obvious that spam is a thing, instead of trying to hide it behind a curtain of failed KYC-walling of platforms. All these platforms, X, Telegram and others, have all sorts of constraints of whom can create accounts, and yet they're full of spam and users have no alternative other than to eat the spam and click "report" buttons because everything is assumed to not be spam.
The empty X account I've created after deleting my old account just to be able to read links people send me has now over 300 followers, all of which are bots, and I didn't even do anything to signal I would be a worth scam target.
Meanwhile on Nostr everything is (must be) assumed to be spam but data is widely available and simple solutions can be implemented by anyone, like the ridiculously obvious (in hindsight) "WoT" filtering that works in 99% of the cases, but there are many other ways.
#makeitquote