Nostr Web Client

It's very easy to create new projects, so we get shiny thing syndrome. Meanwhile, fixing the important problems (key migration, push notifications, relay selection outside the outbox model, exposing relay policies to users and clients, also great UX, cooperating with other developers on a single project) are really hard. There's still plenty of room for experimentation, but we do need some professional projects to be build. I'm attempting to do that with https://flotilla.social right now, but there's a long way to go.

Globe99 3w ago

This guy here's doing good work. ^^^^

tree 木 3w ago

TBH, this feels more sociological for me, than technical. The protocol seems optimized for alignment over accessibility. When Nostr is so tightly coupled to Bitcoin maximalism and Lightning Network, both of which filter out huge portions of potential users, then the technical improvements its not so relevant..

For example, the Bluesky team intentionally hides their crypto background and publicly avoids connecting their protocol to any blockchain - specifically to not repel people who are brainwashed by current institutions that "bitcoin/crypto is a scam". I'm not saying Nostr should do the same, but maybe that deep Nostr & Bitcoin connection can be one of the potential reasons for this stagnation.

hodlbod 3w ago

Yep, we have no marketing team, so the public image is a bit of a tragedy of the commons. At the same time, all it takes is one really good app to kick start the network effect. DiVine has a chance at this maybe. Primal is the best brand in the space, but I don't actually think they can do it since the product is predicated on the broadcast social media case. Flotilla I think can work this way if I can execute on it, since users can migrate in small groups without being bothered by an existing culture.

tree 木 3w ago

Bluesky didn't have any marketing either, as far as I know. It's really about network effects. I experienced that 40k→40M growth myself, and I really think it really helps there were zero cultural obligations.

There was genuinely diverse population regarding hobbies and expertise even when it was a similar size to Nostr, so new people didn't feel ashamed if they had unpopular interests. Here it looks like Bitcoin monoculture vs a few random other people.

The irony is that Nostr itself is agnostic - the protocol doesn't care about Bitcoin or politics. But the cultural monoculture contradicts the infrastructure's neutrality, and that's what drives people away.

hodlbod 3w ago

Bluesky's marketing department was Elon Musk. But your observations about nostr are true. At the same time, I'm not that worried about it, so long as 1. the best tech wins and 2. I can build a sustainable business on the protocol while staying decentralized. On the other other hand I recognize that "build it and they will come" is delusional. It all just depends on what the goals for the protocol are, and those vary widely.

tree 木 3w ago

I think best tech wins on an open, unregulated market - not when most of your potential customers are institutionalized like in current democracies. If people are conditioned to rely on institutions and can't even recognize alternatives, then technical superiority is irrelevant.

atyh 3w ago

gen z seems to be going with public libraries, group dinners, and analog, instead of protocols. which i kinda love. but kinda dont.

hodlbod 3w ago

Based but also maybe a loser strategy

atyh 3w ago

depends on what they are losing i suppose 🤷

tree 木 3w ago

Social networks are something intuitively graspable by normal people - you post, you follow, you interact. But Bitcoin or any other crypto isn't. That's literally the opposite of what people are used to - it's a complex paradigm shift that needs weeks or months of studying. Tying these two things together closes the door to far too many people.

Bluesky showed that people ARE hungry for alternatives - it grew from 40k users to 40M. Nostr could have caught a lot of these people, but didn't.

Ryan 3w ago

Blue sky was also pushed hard by the MSM and had a huge astroturfing campaign on Reddit. Nostr didn't have this, while having funding levels that are a couple of orders of magnitude less.

I came to Nostr with zero Bitcoin knowledge of history. I stayed because I found people I liked. If ask you see on Nostr is Bitcoin Maxi's, that's on you for who you follow and interact with.

tree 木 3w ago

It's not just about who you follow. The whole ecosystem is tied to Bitcoin, clients are Lightning-only, zaps, payments, everything. Are there even Nostr developers who aren't bitcoiners? I believe there are maybe some exceptions, but that proves my point a little.

And I'm not advocating to replace Bitcoin with something else, I'm saying separate the protocol from monetary systems entirely and welcome diversity.

Ryan 3w ago

There have been forks of various clients that included other currencies, mostly Monero. It's not inherently tied to Bitcoin, though most apps include the feature because it's what their users want.

Some clients don't even have zaps x21.social & nos.social for instance.

ABH3PO 3w ago

I wasnt a bitcoiner when I started on nostr if I became one thats just a testament to bitcoin, should we force people to believe what is not true?

I run formstr.app which has nothing to do with bitcoin, except that you can buy custom URLs with it, but you'll also be able to do that with FIAT soon.

Matt 3w ago

I still think reliable and reasonably secure software is valuable. Reliability and security takes a ton of effort and care.

Chad Lupkes 3w ago

Well, let me ask this. How many advertisements have you seen? How many bots? How much of your time on Nostr has been spent scrolling through stuff that you really don't want to see?

You first joined in May of 2023, and I can see everything you posted along with all of your replies. You didn't believe the Lightning Network was a successful project, and didn't think it would be. Do you still believe that?

You came back 6 days ago and immediately launched into what you think is wrong with the protocol and why other options might be better. I've engaged where I feel that my reply might add value, and live my life. Our networks are ours to build, nobody else can do that for us.

tree 木 3w ago

I am here because I believe that Nostr is probably the only network that can help combat authoritarianism. But for that to happen, it needs to grow. I would like to help, but in order to do so in a meaningful way, I first need to understand what is actually wrong.

RE LN - I was skeptical of Lightning in 2023. Still am. It remains too technical for mainstream adoption. Because of complexity it tends to centralization and forcing people using custodial wallets and centralized middlemens. Monero, Zcash, stablecoins etc. are much more human-scalable and easy to use.

Globe99 3w ago

"I would like to help" -- want to run a Mastodon bridge? 😄

That's a way to instantly juice the scale and reach of Nostr.

nout 3w ago

We already have a bridge to mastodon and in my opinion it sucks for everyone involved.

Chad Lupkes 3w ago

A bridge of information without a bridge for capital keeps communities in silos.

What if a zap on Nostr arrived on Mastadon in whatever currency or chain that the user wants to store. I think Bitcoin is the best, so that's what I would choose. But everyone should have their choice.

Globe99 3w ago

We "have" bridges, but they're functionally broken, as I've documented elsewhere...

When they work, I've had a lot of good interactions across them.. as have others that I've talked to.

They are super easy to filter if users don't want to see them. But it'd be great if they actually worked for the people who want to use them.

tree 木 3w ago

Yeah, I'm not a fan of bridge either. It's tempting, but it means you have some middleman who has to run the bridge. Making a bridge so that it's really usable (bidirectional communication) is extremely complicated.

Globe99 3w ago

Well right, the Mastodon side of the bridge has to act like any other Mastodon instance, meaning that whomever running it has to have a "moderation" policy (or even no policy, which is a policy in and of itself).

You could (for instance) only relay posts based on your Web of Trust... Which would be a transparent "moderation" policy that you could advertise to both sides of the bridge.

But it's definitely a way to bring in lots of users who care about things other than Bitcoin... 😁

Chad Lupkes 3w ago

Well, nobody 'controls' Nostr, it's designed to be beyond anyone's control. What I'm seeing is a free for all of development where anyone with an idea and the skills is trying their hand and trying to tap into the streams. There are thousands of apps out there that could be forked and brought into the Nostrverse, which is fun to watch.

But, what I'm also seeing is a lack of overall vision. Most people are trying to identify market niches and building what they know, and very few people are looking at the overall structure and trying to encourage the building of foundational layers that themselves can be built upon. I'm sure if anyone IS doing that and they see this, I'm probably wrong, but all I have is my own eyes and my own limited feed. And that would absolutely prove my point.

Nostr, at least to me, is a information sharing application layer. The principles are strong, with distributed storage and retrieval of posts and content. What it lacks is not people, but a reason for people to come to this network instead of the ones that they are already using. In the old days we'd be talking about a "killer app", which is why I think so many people are trying to do just that. I think differently, and what I believe we need is a "killer foundation", something that Nostr can utilize, add to and become part of.

I have A vision for how it can do that. I just don't have the skills to make it happen.

tree 木 3w ago

I think most people don't use reasoning when changing social networks - they follow friends, vibes, and whether they feel welcome. Technical features matter less than cultural fit.

Yes, Nostr is technically great and I think it's ready to grow. But if it doesn't actually grow, then the technical excellence doesn't matter. You can build millions of apps on top of a solid foundation, but without users, it's just wasted effort.

Chad Lupkes 3w ago

I joined Nostr because I wanted to be on a platform that could not be stopped by national borders. Most of the people in my other social media circles are focused on their networks, not the world at large.

Fenix 3w ago

You have a noble belief but I suggest you to change a little bit to see not a solution for a problem that they want you to keep fearing. You have Nostr giving you the keys for your cyber data mouth, you sign what you say and nobody can’t tell you anything different about that. Fight against authoritarianism is a lost cause, you’ll fight against a dead body, while your problem are those individuals feeding you fear with an imaginary hand, here you get cover. When dead body authoritarianism became more friendly will you back for the social media corporations hand? Where you have no mouth.

tree 木 3w ago

You've got it backwards. Authoritarianism isn't a "dead body" - it's metastasizing. Every minute brings new regulations, new surveillance, new "safety" justifications for control. The merger of state and corporate power isn't authoritarianism dying, it's evolving into something more total and harder to resist.

Fenix 3w ago

State is a corporation, ever was. Individuals claim you have to follow their rules, claiming they have the authority from a dead body. You can’t show me state, it not exist, authoritarianism came from these individuals. Fear is a strong weapon.

Chad Lupkes 3w ago

Nation States are contracts, given jurisdiction over land by international convention. Plant a flag, claim to control the rules, nobody else can claim other rules within your sandbox.

Corporations are contracts, given jurisdiction over a copyright/patent/trademark by nation states, and enforcing that jurisdiction in order to accumulate capital to give to shareholders.

Authoritarianism is when claimed authority becomes self-perpetuating through the abuse of capital, the forces that control and amplify the movement of information.

When governments take over business, we call it communism sometimes. When businesses take over government we call it regulatory capture. Both are fascism, and both lead to authoritarianism.

The only defense against this is a combination of rights that must be demanded. The right to exit, taking control of our capital outside of the influence of either nation state or corporation. The right to fork, taking control of the rules that apply to how we interact with others. The right to verify, giving us the truth from the source, not claims from people we can't trust. The right to sustain, protecting our foundations from those who would extract for their own profits.

Fenix 3w ago

Here you don’t have the algo attention catcher for sheep. And what I saw many ppl coming here as an alternative for X and other shit, here is not social media like those where they sold your attention. Here you have real mind ideas flowing trough no fake life morons, but those new Nostr users like to be sheep in social media platforms than they became frustrated and goes back to their masters.

tree 木 3w ago

People leaving X are going to Bluesky because it offers exactly what you say—free choice of algorithm (or no algorithm). There are also real ideas flowing there. Just the ideas are very diverse, spanning many different interests.

Fenix 3w ago

Except they are not the owner of their mouth, they have to accept bluesky police and if they don’t follow it, bluesky erase all their data.

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