Nostr killed my 20GB phone data plan 😭
Discussion
How many relays are you connected to? More relays will use more data. 🤙🏼
Highly recommend nostr.wine for this reason. If you use their aggregating relay you can be subscribed to a really small number on your phone and still have a good experience. https://nostr-wine.github.io/filter-relay/
Thanks!
Looks like nostr has it’s downsides
Ouch.
Nostr's design is truly decentralized which is good, but normal users may be surprised by the amount of data and client-side processing that is required to have a rich social media experience. It can too easily consume far more mobile data than hyper-optimized mobile YouTube streaming.
They already begun to optimize by providing things like data saving image compression proxies.
Perhaps Mobile Nostr clients need pop-up warnings about mobile data consumption. Other apps give users options to automatically minimize mobile data use while they are unrestricted while on WiFi. For example a mobile Nostr client detecting mobile data mode could skip loading of images or show a very low res version from a proxy until you click on the image to download.
#[0]
I've been avoiding using Nostr on 4G for that reason. There has got to be a way to compress and cache effectively so there's not such big payloads.
There are still people without unlimited mobile data plans? I pay like 20 bucks, still a fortune compared to Swedish proportions though…
I'm traveling. I get a 1GB sim card every week or so.
Ok, traveling is Nostr’s Achilles’ heel :)
There is for sure, is just a matter of implementation. The more users like you provide this sort of feedback, the faster these features will be implemented! 💪
I think smarter clients one day that use a combo of standard and smart relays that can dedup events, cache and compress, download headers only, filter, etc. etc. but still auto switch to real relays for resilience.. maybe ‘smart relay’ features can all be done via optional NIPs.
Cannot confirm. Have an unlimited mobile data plan and was heavy on Damus while traveling usually having a YouTube in PiP.
62GB YouTube and 1.2 GB Damus in February.
Lightning has a lot of traction in developing country.
Feels here like Nostr won’t be an appeal for those place because of the data it consumes.
We need optional “custodial” solution that preprocess the feed I guess.
You're on the right track. It need not be custodial for a hosted solution to enable a good experience. Read-only personal proxy could go very far in aggregating and filtering data from relays thereby significantly reducing bandwidth requirements for a client.
Some people already are working on this type of personal proxy.
With subkey delegation and revocation added to the Nostr spec it could be even more powerful without risking the user's main private key.
I'm beginning to see free read-only from paid relays isn't working. The paid relays are struggling now under read-only load to such a degree that is paid users can't use them. But if relays require private keys to read then a non-custodial personal proxy server would not work until subkey delegation becomes a real thing.
Nostr needs work.
The proxy could pass the challenge and response to and from the client through some protocol extension (client/user would still have to trust proxy not to abuse the authenticated session).
I'd rather like to see an anonymous solution, though, like some kind of usage tokens based on blind signatures.
Yeah but you’ll need a at home proxy. I would make a parallel with running a lightning node. If you know how to do this, then that’s good you can have your own proxy.
But for most people in developing country that doesn’t work.
Home proxy could be hosted in the cloud for ordinary users.
This is FUD. Nostr itself does not require giant amounts of data consumption. This is a client design choice.
It's not FUD if a bunch of us are experiencing massive data usage - a few some folks hit 50GB! My understanding is things aren't optimized yet
Just to clarify what was being expressed.
If you are using Firefox and it’s super slow and messing up your computer, you aren’t going to call your ISP and say that the Internet in general is slow.
There are things that need to be worked out in terms of how data is pulled in but the clients (the app you’re using) might be just grabbing tons of data to pull in stats.
I would also check how many relays you’re connected to. If you have a ton that’s going to be a lot more servers that you’re going to be pulling from.
Some of this are trade offs on decentralized design, some under our control.
I know some people are working on mobile friendly relay designs that will pull from multiple sources for you but the trade off is less decentralized.
Think fiatjaf is just saying it's a semantics thing. It's technically not nostr protocol causing the data crunch, it's whatever client you are using.
That's not what I am saying. I am saying clients are different. #[0]
Beware of Mr. Togami's takes. He doesn't really know what he is talking about.
I can see it on gossip. Very less data usage compare to other clients
Exactly: 
(after an hour of intermittent usage)
Try to make #[0] realize that though. He will die on the hill that Nostr is bandwidth-heavy by nature. He just posts that same FUD every day.
Does gossip not load images? Is this not counting image download bytes? I highly doubt this number is correct. Some profile pictures are like 5-10MB. This is FUD itself.
Is this the reason why I see the profile pic only of someone I don’t follow only when I click on the robot head? That is quite neat!
Btw, why should images be part of gossip messages? Do you actually sign the bytes of the image or only the link to the image?
That's a bit harsh bro.
I can see it on gossip. Very less data usage compare to other clients
Lol same. This needs fixing
🤔 why is my data usage so low?
You need to add relays and follow more people. That will solve it 😉
Will check & add the relays... I currently have 12 active (2 paid) and following 178 people. Don't want to miss out on all the fun 🤩
PURA VIDA 🤙
more relay more data used
Am using Amethyst and have a similar experience. Takes lots of mobile data to run.
Currently consuming about 2GB a day.
cc: #[2]
Need to get on that unlimited plan game