If we solve a real problem , people will figure out a way to join no matter how bad onboarding.. flip side is true too :-)
Discussion
What are some real problems that (a) nostr is in a special position to solve (b) if solved a large crowd will rush in regardless of UX pains
There are plenty (a) but not (b) and vice versa, but how about both?
The problem that we are currently focused on is censor ship resistance .. a noble cause but appeals to few - and rightly so , we already have attracted people who value freedom .. they are excited about nostr even though initiation may not be easiest !
But for 99 percent of the population "censorship " is not really a problem .. no one in my real life circle has ever been censored by X or Insta :-)
The key problem that nostr solves for masses is - one singular password for entire internet - but the appreciation for such schema becomes apparrent only when we have diverse set of applications .. for example banking , vacations rentals , travels, ride share etc . Till we have many such solutions , the appeal to normies wrt a "singular log in" is very limited .. so , they assume nostr is another social media .. which they have 100 options .. and frankly no one wants another social tool (:-
And building many apps shall take time .. (obviously) ..
So meanwhile , the killer app is zaps .. it attracts creatives .. not only as sole money making objective ..but recognition of their work .. additionally , creatives love freedom .. kinda good overlap with anti censorship enthusiasts ..
The interim goal, should, thus be , attracting creatives .. some suggestions are
- we should not expect creatives to be #nostrOnly .. give them tools to share their creative work to all the platforms .. for example , every time they note on nostr .. the note should automatically go to their chosen playmtforms .. x , insta , tiktok etc .. so nostr kinda becomes their freedom content management layer ..
- let them bring their work to nostr without having to copy their media again .. for example thousands of podcasts , hundreds of public domain books , music can be quickly made accessible through nostr ..
- subscriptions management - like Patreon but much more .. for example , a podcaster can't even send a newsletter to their subscribers on Spotify .. on youtube , I don't even know who are the people subscribing to my channel ! .. if creatives could move their subs to nostr for a wholistic subscriber management , they will do so at all their exposure platforms ..
- integration with creative apps - publish podcasts directly from audacity .. submit a longform directly from substack .. there are 100s of creative apps being rewritten with AI .. embed nostr natively into them ..
The point is - put yourself into CREATIVE shoes :-) .. and solve painpoints in their workflow ..
I appreciate the long and passionate response.
I think with zaps something that's often overlooked is the fact that zaps don't scale well on iOS, and for creatives the iOS audience is by far the most important one. X, Rumble and others would all implement zaps on posts (including USDT variants) if they could. They all have the rails; technically this is not a difficult thing to do.
Apple doesn't allow zaps on posts without enabling in-app purchase, and when in-app purchase is enabled Apple generally takes a 30% cut. Patreon for comparison is only 8%.
It's also very difficult for people to acquire sats in many parts of the world, and in many states in the US. Even Primal, with it's built in wallet and in-app purchase enabled, cannot allow users from New York, Canada and other places to purchase sats in the app.
You add these things up and zaps really does not scale well for creators. It's a tricky challenge and one that isn't talked about much.
Zaps are icing on the cake .. a great one :-)
The core idea is to first become the backend of creative economy / ecosystem .... not compete with platforms ..enable the creatives ground up ..
Let's say we focus on four big ones ..
Podcasters
Musicians
Video shows
Writers
Each have a bunch of tools in creative process , collaboration needs cuz nothing gets built in isolation, content storage , getting the word out , publishing , subscriptions , revenue consolidation ..
Nostr should be integrated into every aspect such that it becomes a "no brainer " for each of the creative streams ..
The good things is most platforms just do bare bones for creatives .. cuz their perspective is - creatives will automatically come if they lock in the eyeballs .. nostr should let them have eyeballs but capture the hands that create .. exact opposite of conventional wisdom :-)