You literally can't stress this enough, because no matter how much you explain it, people will remain blissfully ignorant.

I don't know Elon Musk or trust him but I still have an X account. I couldn't even tell you who owns Reddit. It was Ycombinator but I know Tencent is invested in Reddit and Discord.

No clue who operates any Lemmy instance I have tried in recent weeks. No trust there.

Users are not going to solidify trust externally to the system, except in their own personal interfacing with that system. Nostr is no different. I've used almost every known client- do I trust the creators? Absolutely not, as I don't know anyone behind the npub.

Do I trust the internet to secure my content unless I am the authority above said content? No. Do I even trust a sovereign system without backups? Nope. Can anyone really trust backups without several layers of redundancy? That depends on the **importance of the data**.

Because the underlying technology does not require trust. It requires cohesion and function.

Transacting between entities is where trust comes into play. Transactional trust has been outsourced to verified protocols, like TradFi systems and Bitcoin/LN/XMR/crypto.

Verification is where trust is native to networks. I can verify the code of the applications I install. I can verify how "well known" a developer is. I can verify their past experience if it is available. I can verify their sentiment by exploring their public identities.

This is totally devolving but I'll leave it at that and invite others to argue about trust/verification/authentication in my wake.