Nostr Web Client

It’s a critical take on Nostr, but if we distill the core innovation - it’s the simple cryptographic Event JSON payload - and the protocol’s openness.

Websocket relays are ok, but Nostr can work over hybrid p2p or REST. The query engine is ok, but it’s basic and has design faults and limitations.

So why write this post?

I think we can expand on todays relays and evolve the event transport layer, likely to many simultaneous methods including a p2p layer, and greater privacy.

I think we can reimagine the event query engine, allowing for more performant and expressive queries. Perhaps GraphQL, maybe feature from new streaming databases like SurrealDB.

I think if we open the box a little more, we can start to explore new and powerful innovations that can expand upon the NIP-01 primitives.

If we start to experiment and challenge ourselves to discover new ways to make Nostr unstoppable, I think we will find amazing new capabilities are possible and bring forth a wave of communications innovation.

OpenSourceOptimist 2y ago

Sometimes it's is simplicity and limitations that foster the greatest innovations. In many cases less is more.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Blake 2y ago

I agree.

The challenge I see however is being honest, centralisation is easier. Decentralisation is harder.

Many things solved for big tech doesn’t work well for decentralised (discovery, spam, data persistence, availability, etc).

We basically need to reinvent ways to do these things - and often on smaller lower powered devices like mobiles.

Until we can make things simple, sometimes we just need to make them work first.

OpenSourceOptimist 2y ago

Decentralization is really hard. But I am sceptical the solution lies in the buzzwords I hear at work.