Subnostr

This is a valid and important point. But we must constantly remind ourselves that users will not do things like run personal relays at home for ideological reasons. They’ll do it if it’s easy, cheap, and awesome as a consumer.

How about this as a bridge:

1. I set up something like relay.tools which is quick and easy

2. I set up a mirror relay at home on an umbrel or start9, as a backup to my relay in the cloud.

If my home relay goes out and I don’t notice for months or years (which has a high likelihood of happening), that’s ok bc the cloud relay is doing the actual work. If the cloud service rugs me or comes under the thumb of the state, that’s probably ok bc I probably have it all backed up at home, and maybe now I’ll be motivated to make sure my home relay stays connected.

ChipTuner 1y ago

I think the economic incentives will always vertically align with SaaS. I think about this daily. But do we actually have nostr if relays mostly exist in the cloud. Do we have censorship resistance if relays mostly exist in the cloud.

Keyword mostly. Do we want to encourage users to host cloud relays vs just paying for public relays? We can then defer trust to the more central relay hosters as they are more likely motivated than cloud hosters.

I think governments have the power to fire the cannon at cloud providers. On top of that becomes data privacy, relays generally aren't all that secure in terms of data storage. As secure as a cloud database and an HTTPS connection that can be intercepted by the cloud provider as a service as well.

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Discussion

cloud fodder 1y ago

I align with your thoughts here, although I am also a realist. I have built relay.tools to be 100% cloud agnostic. That means it can run on any linux machine, anywhere with the only dependencies being DNS and SSL certificate providers. Currently I run on a small server hosting platform that is not the BIG clouds. The thing is, you are always going to be dependent on a service provider, ISP, or various other internet infrastructure regardless of how you choose to operate. Even if you ran a server at home, and opened up it's ports to the internet, then your ISP can shut you down. Therefor the best you can do is remain agile. You probably shouldn't burn your home ISP as those are hard to come by, you should shuttle your traffic to a cheap VPS somewhere and let the traffic exit there, protect your home ISP geoIP location. Don't build things that lock you into a specific provider (I haven't), retain the ability to 'hop' around if a provider decides they don't want your business.

ChipTuner 1y ago

To be clear I'm not attacking you, your platform, or your products. I'm speaking out loud.

I believe I'm also a generally a realist that's refusing to ignore a problem with the idea of marketing a product to slightly-above average users wanting to host a relay. I'm refusing to ignore the "well that's just the way it is" it feels like enabling a systemic problem. I spent many years in customer support simply providing education about a complex topic myself and still believe those were resources well spent. I'm arguing you cannot truthfully make the promise of nostr freedom using cloud services. Therefor it should not be marketed as such if that's going to be the case.

I would consider myself quite versed in sysadmin world and am regularly hit with the complications of the lifestyle of maintaining a mini data center of enterprise equipment.

I refuse to accept the "reality is people are simply too dumb, busy or bothered" so I will sell them convenience and a one-size fits all approach in perpetuity. The problem is still user education, and we keep avoiding it.

I will accept that no economic incentives exist to educate users. In fact economic incentives exist to keep users ignorant in much of the world. Most TV commercials express the message "don't do X, we can do it for you"

I just think we need to be more cautious about how were marking products and still align with the promises that can be delivered, when nostr generally makes grandiose freedom and ownership promises.

ChipTuner 1y ago

>The problem is still user education, and we keep avoiding it.

That's because user education isn't a product that can be easily sold or marketed. People want to purchase bandaids, pills, and duct tape. People simply want to be sold good enough.

cloud fodder 1y ago

All good man, I'm not quite following..

ChipTuner 1y ago

Fair. Things always sound more clear in my head :) I think this deserves a blog or something more long form.

david 1y ago

It’s always a challenge to balance the “purist” approach with the practical realities. I imagine a Venn diagram, a small set of actions that allow us to be completely true to both.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

if it doesn't pay the bills it isn't even considered, but with fiat a lot of that is just directing the flood of liquidity and not about actually meeting a market need

ChipTuner 1y ago

I would consider it more of an overton window.

ChipTuner 1y ago

I think there may be too much overlap with "practical realities" and cop out. Not in all cases, I guess it depends why were here.

david 1y ago

This is why I see it as a Venn diagram. Super easy to meet one requirement without the other:

cypherpunk but no PMF

PMF but not cypherpunk

The challenge is to achieve both at the same time.

ChipTuner 1y ago

I think I can agree

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

i think the point is about finding legitimate market needs to fulfill

i've been saying this for some time

much of the money coming to bitcoin and nostr dev does not make conditions of contingency upon building an actual business model from it, just building some idealistic thing

if the focus was on making actual business, and not fiat VC burn, we'd be a lot more effective at getting people to come here and stay and turn off the mainstream

there just isn't much difference, shitty software, half assed ideas, and nobody actually trying to make a business that actually brings in enough money to pay the people making it happen

david 1y ago

💯