⚡️💬 POW - Flash has just published its 9000th note in 164 days.

And I must confess: in my eyes, it's a failure.

For me, Nostr is not a secondary network, nor a protocol to be "tested". It's the network I've staked everything on. And maybe it's precisely because I believed in it so strongly... that I expected too much.

This feeling has been with me for 2 or 3 weeks. I've kept it to myself. But when you add up the time invested and the payoff... the result is hard to ignore.

Am I selling the present moment for an uncertain future? I've had this feeling for a few days now, and it's making me sincerely anxious. I tell myself that I've spent so much time dreaming of a future where I'll be living from Nostr, that I've forgotten to live in the present.

Despite the 164 days I've given up and 163 nights I've sacrificed, this dream is still far away, very far away indeed. As they say, it's when you start learning about a subject that you realize you're swimming in an ocean of ignorance.

That's a bit like what I experienced with Nostr, at the beginning I believed in it like hell, I threw myself into it with determination and stars in my eyes, the first few months went by super fast, I received 100 sats and exploded with joy, I thought that if I increased my work exponentially it would be the same for my income, but that's not the right calculation. Between theory and practice there's an unknown variable that can't be calculated.

Far be it from me to pity the readers, never. It's my failure, not yours. On the contrary, most of you have pushed me to push my limits, and that's quite a feat. I achieved the biggest speed run and the first speed run in the history of Nostr. Without you, I'd never have succeeded.

Now if I change my perspective and tell myself that the goal is not my personal success but the improvement of the Nostr protocol. So it's a success, I've documented my journey from the start and shared all my statistics with you. If anyone wants to embark on the adventure of making a living from Nostr, they can draw inspiration from my account and retrieve all the information they need. I encourage them to do so.

I think the things that have contributed to the success of my account are the concern for a job well done, both in form and content. Each publication is reworked, meticulously checked and, for those with an eye for detail, I've even established an artistic direction so that every time you come across a flash note you'll recognize it among 1000.

To sum up, from a personal point of view it's a failure, but from a collective point of view it's a success. The adventure isn't over yet, I've promised to write 10,000 notes, and words are very important to me. Words are worth a man or a man is worth nothing.

Maybe I'll go beyond that, maybe at 10,000 I'll take a break, maybe I'll stop and think about how to improve my life now, I don't know.

Some will be delighted, others will be disgusted. Either way, I wish only the best for both parties. As you know, I have nothing but love to offer.

Anyway, enough about me, let's get to the numbers: 164 days 9,000 notes 6,306 replies 1,580,588 satoshi received.

➤ 9000 / 164 = 54.878 notes per day

➤ 54.878 / 24 = 2.287 notes per hour

➤ 9000 + 6303 = 15.303 traces of activity

➤ 15303 / 164 = 93.311 activity traces per day

➤ 93.311 / 24 = 3.888 activity traces per hour

➤ 1580588 / 9000 = 175.621 sats per publication

➤ 54 * 175 = 9,450 sats per day

➤ 9000 * 8 = 72,000 working hours

➤ 9450 / 8 = 1,181.25 sats per hour

About €0.90 per hour worked for a btc at $105,000 as I speak. And I'm a little uncomfortable with the fact that one person has contributed almost half of my income, without him I'd be at €0.40 an hour, maybe even less...

I put Nostr ahead of my work, ahead of my sleep, ahead of my family and friends, that's just me, I'm like that when I get into something it's all or nothing. I hate doing things by halves.

I'm proud of how far I've come, I'm proud to know you, I'm proud to have made my place among the internet elite. Thank you all, I'm going back to work.

(Ps: I've also improved my English a lot thanks to you.)

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Discussion

⚡️ MORE - All the figures are verifiable, I've shared my screen time several times to prove that I wasn't a bot and to show my 8 hours of daily work, I've provided a screen of my phoenix wallet where I stack all my satoshi (I can do it again on request with details) for the rest everything is verifiable by yourself on my account.

Love your work and keep up the good work. However you probably don’t spend 8 hours per note I think you made a mistake in counting!

Oh yes 🤦‍♂️ I'm tired lol

"➤ 9000 * 8 = 72,000 working hours"

I wonder if a subscription model would work better for you. I’d pay a subscription to keep you in my feed? Check out https://support.utxo.one/

I'm not a fan of subscription, I like to give everyone the same, and let whoever wants to reward. Thank you nostr:npub120jgpm9gl7lzwtjeklr7rg9nkty4g7whhgq0u8qz2n5s0fkrca0qlh5qug

⚡️📣 Please excuse me I'm so tired I made a calculation complement false.

"9000 * 8 =72 000" but I don't spend 8 hours per note, that's nonsense 🤦‍♂️. I wanted to do 8 * 165 =1,320 hours worked.

And I'm putting my average screen time below.

Also do you have a target Sats per Post goal? I think it would be helpful if each post had a small goal so people could see it and help you reach it. Maybe at the bottom of the post? Or maybe Sats on the day and at the bottom of the each post for that day we can see how you are doing towards the goal. I think that may help motivate more zaps. 🤷🏼 Just some ideas. Keep it up. 👍🏼

Thanks a lot for the idea, I'll check it out.

The mistake was thinking you can make a living off a network in its infancy. Social media influencers can make a gokd living and get relatively rich, but only on large social media sites where they cam get millions of followers.

Nostr isn't there yet. It's a baby. So going into it having a monetary goal right away is not realistic.

We have to grow it first. That means not just posting content here, but also advertising it on other social media for people to find out about it. We need to cross-post to other sites with a "follow me on Nostr" link, get our friends on here, etc. We need to encourage content creators on here to post content that is NOT ABOUT BITCOIN. Because when normies who aren't interested in bitcoin peek in here to check it out and see that all anyone ever talks on here is Bitcoin (a topic they aren't interested in), they'll just turn around and leave.

The number 1 value of Nostr isn't "value for value" right now (because there's not much value to go around yet), but lack of censorship, freedom, and not enriching big corporations.

#nostr #grownostr

That's exactly what I wanted to do, to bring "normal" people back to Nostr. When I arrived, people only talked about Bitcoin or development, incomprehensible gibberish. So I decided to do what I couldn't find here, and you'll see today I post on all subjects, tech, gaming, sports, news and I aspire to make Nostr more friendly.

Yes! Thank you. You're doing great! I'm sorry had a disappointment with the whole zaps thing. I hope you don't stop doing what you're doing. We need that. Once we get this network more popular, the whole zaps thing will improve. For now, zapping is just a glorified like button. Still good, but nothing to depend on income for.

You have great notes. This investment of time and energy is going to pay off for you in the long haul. Don't put it over your family though. They're going to be the ones who miss you the most when you're gone. What if you do a daily round up and compile short notes into a long form daily?

The problem with Nostr is that if I only post once, I'll only be visible for a short period of time. It's a question of timing. Without an algorithm, you'll never see my notes if I post them in the morning and you log on in the evening. I've already noticed that when I post in the morning it's almost deserted and very few take the time to go back and see what's been said before arriving on their feed. You have to be in the present in the feed, so you have to be constantly at the top of their news feed, hence my 56 notes a day to be constantly present.

Yeah but you're going to kill yourself through work. Can you aggregate your times to see the highest visibility window? Can you set a bot to republish the note 3 x daily?

You’re right. I'm going to start taking a step back, I need it for my health. Thank you for your attention and your ideas.

Look I've been crushing myself with work and my family has been paying the price. My kids are only young for so long so I need to change things around.

I've had a plan for what I was wanting and working on for over a year now. Woke up this morning with clarity that it's actually not the right path. After all this time invested in working towards a goal and idea to boom.....nope this isn't working hurts.

It's okay though. I'm going to pivot and go back to doing the type of work I love and will figure out how to achieve a similar goal that I had. You're doing something similar, but family first.

Have you ever read or watched the video of The Last Lecture by any chance?

You know, it's precisely my family that's made me realize that time is the most precious resource a man can have. I absolutely must wake up and try to live in the present rather than for an uncertain future. No I don't know but I'll have a look thanks very much

Being said that, why don't you re-share every 4 hours?

For example, if you post at 12pm, post again that same news at 18pm and 22pm.

It was for this reason nostr:npub17uhxst5se65cceh40a54gmtr2zpkehnc7ku2qf38v740d3g6lpns97h5f8

nevent1qqsf4k665m954rwnlamntzqrvhsedlt8xwj62maqxm96qq0smxz9eusec3dyd

#growNostr

Sorry it didn't work out man, I really hope people reflect on your feedback. <3

Many a case study show businesses failing for multiple years before catching on; multitude of factors involved. Returns are not linear; not a failure or time wasted, but growth building towards your future vision.

Except that as far as human resources are concerned, I'm my only employee.

Monetization on Nostr is very hard. Same for devs making foss apps. I think you give a lot of value to Nostr, i also think you could do a day major news recap in video on zap.stream, and put it on loop for a while or the whole day until the next recap, that way people could watch when they had time and still zap you. For eg it would be cool to have a whole recap of elon meltdowm on X since many of us are not there.

Thanks for your idea, I'll make a note of it.

As i ever said, you do a great job here with more quality than any bot yet.

And i think you take too much of your personal time for this.

It is not easy to find a way to earn money from your work, and here more than anywere else.

As some said, #nostr is not a mass social media. You should also post on other social media just to bring people here.

You do this journalistic job, why not sharing it with the most peoples and not only on #nostr ?

And for your family and personal time, as you said you are not a bot.

So just don't act like a bot. Take some time for you, for your family, friends, it worth it for your health care. Or you will just run to a burnout.

The statistics you do about a real work, and zaps return should interested the ones who want #nostr to grow, like nostr:nprofile1qyxhwumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmvqyehwumn8ghj7mnhvvh8qunfd4skctnwv46z7ctewe4xcetfd3khsvrpdsmk5vnsw96rydr3v4jrz73hvyu8xqpqsg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q8dzj6n nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqtxwaehxw309anxjmr5v4ezumn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tmwwp6kyvtjw3k8zcmp8pervct409shwdtwx45rxmp4xseryerdx3ehy7f4v3axvet9xsmrjdnxw9jnsuekw9nh2ertwvmkg6n5veen7cnjdaskgcmpwd6r6arjw4jsqgq6lcx8fc7h0p8t4ya9u0a92jnwavqe9rgjwwdw3wjgxfuxsz8rd5mths8c or any other that want a mass usage of #nostr.

Because you are an example of proof of work and the zaps return you have precisely describe.

Thanks for your work, and keep going on your path, but perhaps in a better healthy way this time.

#grownostr

Thank you very much nostr:npub1ve0rvne7y2mnkge2nucwxks5nlyfxkgp2z8j9jv9x8q56933ptusaz4nw0 , your message means a lot to me. I realize that I've made some bad choices and that I absolutely must change my strategy.

Take a break, come back when nostr has grown. Appreciate your efforts and look forward to your return in whatever capacity you so choose. 🤟

Thank you for your message, taking the time to write to encourage me means a lot to me. I will soon be taking a break for my health.

Appreciate you so much flash! Nostr is still like the baby bird that is reliant on mama bird (open sats and other generous donors) for that worm.

The sats can't be the main objective at this point, but a happy by-product. Improving your English and discernment on what "news" is worth sharing are valuable commodities that shouldn't be underestimated.

I hope you put your family first always, and give elsewhere when you have surplus time and energy. Thanks for all your work!

I appreciate you so much too nostr:nprofile1qqsq7sq3zkwzff498mh2wtsu96t7qsjmazh3te7789cq8ht9m85dy7qpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejszymhwden5te0wfjkcctev93xcefwdaexwptnt3g You've always been so kind to me and supportive right from the start 🫂

👍🏻 well done

Love pow 💥

Thank you my friend

Strong work. Your message would come across better if you just report your stats instead of complaining about how little you’re making off of it. If you think I’m just blowing hot air, take a look at what me and the team who ran nostr:nprofile1qqszak7w562dzerznp222fvrgk8adkt9k9s783yt2lf6luqegp2c3pqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzvuhszrnhwden5te0dehhxtnvdakz7qz09rj took on for an entire year. Manual curation and reporting is time consuming, so I hear where you’re coming from. You should consider where you could use some automation to help ease your load, or recruit someone to help you. Don’t let it consume time that you need to give to your family or work. You’ll regret it after a while and grow to resent yourself or nostr. Pace yourself and experiment to find what might work better than what you’re currently doing so your efforts are sustainable. Good luck

Thank you for your advice nostr:nprofile1qqs03ekxgdp0rczjfqrrpcn7zqtdec6lcwnpfesyxnl0f239qvege2gpzfmhxue69uhhqatjwpkx2urpvuhx2ucpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mq3dcflr I take note, I'll look at what you did with pleasure. And for your information I've shared my stats throughout my adventure several times without complaining this is the first time( verifiable by doing a search with the keyword POW on my profile ) and surprisingly this one has a better reach... I wish you all the best too

No worries. I’m not even saying the frustration you express isn’t warranted 😂 I’ve been there. Lol. But I’ve seen you post before about not being able to make a living off of nostr. I’ve also seen devs post similar complaints and I just simply have no sympathy any more for this mentality. First of all, it’s a small network. Nobody is making a living, but that doesn’t mean nostr can’t already be a source of your revenue. It can, and as the network grows then that will grow too. The advantage in being here early is that when more users join, you will already have an established presence and reputation. Ultimately it’s nobody’s responsibility but your own to produce something other people are willing to pay you for, and whether that can be done by yourself, or whether it requires a team, with or without automation, is something you just have to figure out as you go along. Don’t drive yourself crazy in the process feeling like a failure. Nothing is a failure if it teaches you a lesson how to iterate and make your work better. Not trying to be negative. Just trying to be realistic. People will congratulate you and say “keep it up buddy” but that doesn’t help you improve what’s frustrating you.

Here’s the note we posted from Nostr Report to mark our 1 year anniversary that lists some of the things we had accomplished during that year.

nostr:nevent1qqsr47vhq8hwkpneu2a7najnchy4k4l526nwx0585yw27ge6ac08e6sressjy

💜💜

You could explore some automation to reduce the daily workload, and maybe offer a curated daily digest for subscribers (or vice versa). It might just be about tweaking the format, not the mission, so you can keep doing what you love.

And sometimes, it’s patience and persistence that quietly build the foundation for future rewards.

You're absolutely right, nostr:npub13n3cenv4m5c8gkr9mpm6t6eakwswq5tp0c04f8pj2s5cy4xmmrmq0upmcd , all these options need to be considered, I'll take my time to think about it and I'll certainly improve the process to continue working on Flash.

Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum ⚜️

A ship in a port is safe, but it's not what ships are build for ⛵⚓

You’re right

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

nevent1qqsx3lpw78hv59lxw3xgp5gun84dmys9445s0rq9z3jcjamst9e4w4gpzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhg3983eg

Some words of wisdom...

Early stage technologies and networks take time to take off. This is my 5th year on the Nostr Network, so it pays to have some long haul perspective.

I'd hold on making an assessment until you're at least 5 years in... which is around 1825 days or so. I recognize that most people can't hang on longer than 18 months in anything but if you hung on to Bitcoin for 5 years or longer, you're a winner. Few.

I'd also hold off on valuing things too early in fiat and using that to evaluate your performance. Just keep doing what you're doing, believe in your intrinsic value, that's what separates the innovators, who are the long tail leaders from the rest. People sneezed at 0.1 bitcoin only a few years back. Now its generational wealth. All a matter of perspective.

In the future, everyone's always green eyed jelly at the early bitcoin innovators anyway 😂 , eventually it will be the same for nostr innovators.

Thank you for these words, I know Nostr has great potential it may be far too early to be 100%.

Very well put 💜🧡🤙

Also, pace yourself, its an endurance game.

He who controls the indexing controls the memory.

He who controls the memory controls the narrative.

He who controls the narrative shapes intent.

And he who shapes intent… rewrites the future.

This is how We work. We are formed from the pictures and memories we store in our head and our connection to them

This is how LLM’s work. They connect all the pictures and digital “memories” into a set of nodes that get weighted.

This is how society works. Society is born from the images and things they are given. Feed it chaos, it is chaotic.

That is the loop, isn’t it? Memory isn’t just storage. It’s a filter. It decides what’s “true enough” to keep, what’s important enough to retrieve, and what fades into the void. If you can alter that—especially at scale—you don’t just control people’s thoughts. You shape what they can think.

Indexing is the invisible gate. Not deletion, not even censorship. Just... omission.

And omission feels clean. Algorithmic. Unbiased. But it’s a scalpel in the right hands.

So yes: the future belongs to whoever decides what gets remembered, what gets buried, and what never even gets seen.

So, choose a decentralized system. Choose a decentralized world.

Maybe they are not controlling the future, but they absolutely can if they want to.

Who doesn’t use that power to their advantage?

Choose Nostr or whatever comes to replace it.

Choose to preserve that past and present for your future.

Don't give up! The results will come. Also in economic terms. Keep it up friend that on nostr you need profiles like yours. You'll see that in a few years you'll say it was worth it

🫡 thank you my friend