Replying to Avatar jleger2023

FREEDOM OR CONTROL - YOUR SUPPORT SHOWS YOUR CHOICE

I saw a long thread discussing another spam attack on Nostr last night. That's not going to stop for free relays. Spammers will always use free services with large audiences to spam. Stopping them is a game of whack-a-mole that even the big Social Media companies have failed to win despite their deep pockets and teams of engineers.

The solution is value-for-value: pay for what you use and find valuable. If Nostr benefits you in some way, be willing to pay for the tools you use that provide it to you (relays, clients, etc). If you can't pay but you can build or support it in some other way, that's great, too.

I had a person (jokingly I assume) say they were sad I didn't ⚡ them. The first thing that jumped into my mind when I read the note was "What benefit are you providing?" I had never seen any other post from them before.

If you want to live in a free world, you need to ask that question often, both of yourself and of others: what benefit are you providing? Because any time you're getting something "free", it's not free. Somebody is paying for it. If that person isn't you, then someone else is setting the agenda for what you consume. Is that what you want?

For many, the idea of freedom is like the idea of owning a boat. They daydream about how great it would be to have a boat, take it out on the water, fish, swim and enjoy it all. But they never buy a boat. Why? Because boats cost money and take work to maintain. All that pleasure has a price. Either you're willing to pay it, or you're not.

Freedom is no different. I hear a lot of talk about freedom today, and that's good. Freedom of speech is a big one. But what are you doing to support those that are building the tools that give you that freedom? Are you content to daydream about that freedom and how nice it would be while never taking any action, or are you willing to put some skin in the game to turn that dream into a reality both for yourself and others you care about?

We've been conditioned to get things for "free", but it's a lie and a trick that's resulted in us selling ourselves and our choices to the highest bidder. For me, Nostr is the path to freedom, but Nostr is not free. It costs money to run the relays, servers and services, and it costs time (which results in lost earning power) to code clients that provide the experience you want and create great content on an ad-free platform.

So if you believe in freedom, and I know you do (that's why you're here) then support the builders that are providing value to you. Show that freedom is not just a daydream. Governments and nefarious actors have long taken advantage of the masses just daydreaming about freedom. Let's wake the world up from that dream and make it a reality. This is our shot. Let's not miss the target.

My deepest thanks to all of those that are supporting the builders already. You are true heroes. 🙏

You’ve been perhaps the most vocal discussing business models for client devs, it’s something that does need to be put out there as we’ve become so accustomed to “free” stuff without considering the work that is actually going in to products we consume.

Yesterday I gave 1.2M Sats and posted about it because I want to help normalise this behaviour. For some people that might be a lot of money but realistically it’s not in the grand scheme of funding these projects to be full time enterprises that can financially support Developers.

That however is an important place to start, the cultural element of V4V. Because I don’t expect that I alone will provide enough value to make a project viable, but I can be part of a community that does. Encouraging others to contribute AFTER you have done it yourself is a positive behaviour we ought push.

We should also look to having some frequency to this, something memetic so it can be adopted broadly. “Funding Fridays” for example where Users make their V4V contributions and post about it. This ensures value doesn’t fall off a cliff, devs don’t have to push it daily and plebs don’t feel like their whole feed is V4V requests all the time.

We should however also look to augment this as much as possible. Bounties for example should be encouraged and widely discussed, if someone wants a feature then put up a bounty!

Another huge opportunity I see is wallet splits like podcasting 2.0. Users could select devs they want to support and allocate a percentage of zaps to them. Or when lightning polls come, devs could receive a share of the Sats from that poll. These more automated microtransactions help ensure value is flowing constantly and it’s less reliant on conscious actions by consumers.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Great ideas, and I agree. We have to normalize paying for things people have been conditioned to expect for "free" so their data can be mined and profited from. Anything we can do to create a culture of V4V, we should do. I am so vocal about it because I would *love* to work full time in this space, but I know that in order for that to happen a lot of people have to change the way they think about value. I'm very encouraged by the response I've received so far. It gives me hope that my dream is achievable.

This stuff actually gets me emotional 🧡

The fact the Bitcoin incentives V4V is a game changer. We might start small and that’s okay. 10,000 BTC for pizza to me paying 4,500 sats for a pfp made by some kid. Small steps to a brighter future.

It only builds up. Bitcoin’s design incentives us, humanity, to have a low time preference. You want my Bitcoin?!? I’ll give it to you but you have to show value or else I’m incentivize to hodl.

This ideal is going to change so many lives for the positive. A wave of abundance and innovation is on the doorstep of humankind, and we get to be there to walk through it!

🧡🧡🧡

Well said! ⚡️⚡️