Tried to explain Nostr to some regular people and yeah, this shit goes straight over their heads.
People love their traditional social media and surveillance.
They usually get a glazed over look when I explain clients and nsec.
Discussion
Understanding their threat model helps to find an appropriate framing. The conversation will likely end the same but you may burn less energy. IIRC nostr:nprofile1qqsrkl7gyds37xh2af37uwlknvjm32ska3hgr5d0cwgzdqy0ux2r2ncpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsz9mhwden5te0wfjkccte9eenx7pwwdhkx6tpdshsh2l07j had a one page on clarifying your own threat model and its super helpful to know where you sit.
I suspect some big problem or reveal on how meta uses WhatsApp will make a seachange but they will logically go to signal. Last time I tried Whitenoise it was a fail.
Well that's how the conversation started.
I usually don't speak about Nostr in public but they were talking about how bullshit freedom of speech was on traditional social media and censorship etc. so it seemed like a good time to throw it out there.
But explaining the mechanics behind it is tough, especially when they don't comprehend what I am talking about (encryption, keys, clients etc. )
Fair enough. I come from startups and it's always "sell the sizzle, not the sausage"
As a tech, I was always getting into the weeds on details so saw a lot of glazed eyes :)
I don't blame them. nostr is a closed book for normies.
I no longer believe it will be anything but a niche social thing.
A couple or us were having a conversation about this the other day.
I've been in social since 2008 don't visit Twitter much since covid-v2 - so I don't play too much with "nostr the social" for the reasons you mentioned.
The thread was along the lines that: if nostr can't monetize beyond sat circles jerk then people won't fund relays. So nostr _could_ be great infrastructure for an Application first internet where identity and your reputation is portable between a "nostr airbnb" and a "nostr user" etc. So really using the vibe potential to attack VC funded b2b SaaS hegemony. It's e/acc without the Andreessens.
Nostr is a protocol so nobody needs permission to build whatever they like.
This is already hapoening and what nostr:nprofile1qqsqgc0uhmxycvm5gwvn944c7yfxnnxm0nyh8tt62zhrvtd3xkj8fhgprdmhxue69uhkwmr9v9ek7mnpw3hhytnyv4mz7un9d3shjqg4waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t09uq3vamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwd4hhxarj9ec82c30hyvdwq is doing is true leadership. The problem I see now and getting really bad is the lack of curation of hobby projects that are basically broken. Like most OSS its "try 5 before you find the 1 that works". This is where VC funded businesses win. Relentless focus on g2m and onboarding and quality. Nostr needs more QA than developers, Nostr needs a benevolent VP of Product (jk but also serious)
I guess the tl;dr might be "nostr the protocol" could be much bigger than the social.
i once helped a boomer on Twitter change his avatar from an egg to an image
it took like an hour and after we finally succeeded he said it was very hard ( with me guiding him step by step ) and he never wants to go through something like that again
the average boomer doesn't even have Twitter
Yeah this is mind melting stuff right here