Nostr Web Client

Nostr clients like #damus have a Twitter like UI because we are all used to using Twitter. However, Twitter and other social media UIs were developed with the goal of capturing and monetising attention. Using addictive ui tropes like “pull down to refresh”, to keep us hooked, milking our attention for their advertisers.

Could #nostr be an opportunity to rethink some of these established ui trends and optimise for user wellbeing rather than manipulating our addictive nature? #asknostr

I’m finding damus almost more addictive than Twitter, partly because the content is less toxic and irrelevant to me. I can’t spend too long ontwitter because I’m put off by a lot of the content, despite the UX’s best attempts to keep me addicted.

Damus doesn’t have this repellant part of the equation so I find myself endlessly scrolling bitcoin memes.

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Discussion

HoloKat 2y ago

https://habla.news/karnage/nostr-for-the-kids

IslandHodl 2y ago

Great article thanks.

I guess it’ll be very much up to user choice, we can’t stop clients being built that are effectively chocolate ice cream for our minds. But we can build clients that are nutritionally balanced and allow educated users to make that choice.

Also I do believe that some of the charitable orgs fighting against social media damage might well be willing to fund and support Nostr client development, they are perhaps unaware of Nostr and in need of educating.

HoloKat 2y ago

User choice is an illusion. As long as that choice was already placed in front of them it’s not their choice. We really don’t have much of a choice in anything around us. Someone had to make the initial choice of giving us that “choice”

I’m not holding my breath. I have not seen any conversations on this topic and I’m not anticipating anyone implementing any of the features I described.

Water Blower 2y ago

People don’t want more choices. People want more confidence in their choices. 3 choices with huge confidence is better than 100 choices with no confidence.

HoloKat 2y ago

You’re not wrong.

Little Spoon 2y ago

I enjoyed your article and it made me consider my own actionable positivity with nostr.

I’ll continue thinking about it, but my first thoughts returned to “what is positivity” and how we all must decide for ourselves and how Bitcoin will help true positivity shine. I do think there are some objectively positive things for us humans.

I really appreciate that you are first of all making this a goal. Thanks for your work.

HoloKat 2y ago

I’ll harass some people and see if we can add some options such as not displaying followers to yourself and adding notification delays. I already only toggle notifications for replies but it would be great to delay them by 5 minutes.

Little Spoon 2y ago

I’m a non dev Damus user rn but nostr does make me want to get on the computer. I guess ultimately people will make their own decisions by using (and building) their own clients.

There is something human about wanting to accumulate followers or even friends, but I think it’s negative when people direct their competitive energy toward social interaction.

To me this is an issue of faith and I am lucky that I have my own. I’m not immune to social competition, but I think competition is best when it’s clear: board games, football, trivia. Compete, shake hands, respect, and then move on to things that bring pure joy and beauty like our families, friends, nature, and other interests.

With bitcoin, I also think work will be a healthier place to direct competition, because it will more often reward workers for truly serving others.

HoloKat 2y ago

I am not sure if people are looking to accumulate followers. They may be after reach, which could be there without follower counts.

If I expose my nsec; I don’t care if I lose 1000 followers or 100,000 - the number itself is irrelevant. But, I would care that I cannot talk to all the people I’ve talked to and id have to rebuild the connections.

IslandHodl 2y ago

I wonder if a Facebook style friend model is worth exploring. The idea that you just connect with someone and it’s both ways could flatten the hierarchy. If you want to ‘follow’ someone you agree for them to follow you. Could be a very different dynamic. Imagine if Elon mush had to reciprocate each of his follows 😂

Perhaps it would require a change in protocol and maybe it’s a totally bad idea. But would be interesting to explore.

Jimmy 2y ago

As a father of a one year old who is suppose to go online in few years, I was also contamplating how would I achieve that. Before reading the post, my idea is to have a whitelis only client 😅 and then I selectively unblock parts of nostr, step by step, and explain him why I did that, what he can learn from it, and how will people try to screw with him.

HoloKat 2y ago

Interesting idea. Maybe kid-friendly relays? And have a client that only works with those? Id be happy to try that.

Jimmy 2y ago

You are a bit mire experienced father, what do you see as a kid-friendly relay? In my opinion everything is kid friendly as long as a kid is mature enogh to understand the content in a right way and not obses over it. So more then controling this on relay side, it makes a bit more sense for a client to offer that flexibility.

James A Lewis 2y ago

Yes. This is an opportunity to maximize satisfaction and not attention. The reason someone wants social media it's to find and develop connections with like minded people, stay in-the-know, relax, and discover. In order to fulfill that rather than only offering s convincing promise of such will require much thinning and effort.

mrclownworld 2y ago

I find myself doing the same thing