Nostr Web Client

LOL why do you hate Odell and primal?

He is a huge hypocrite.

You cannot operate a VC firm and a 501c in the same industry and not be biased.

Example of said hypocrisy Odell and NVK both sit on Opensats. They have a major say in what applications are approved for grants. NVK and Odell both have equity in Coinkite which has been funded by 1031. Odell and NVK have both thrown shade at other hardware wallets like seedsigner and could have very well denied grant applications to people and companies that compete with coinkite.

Primal is another 1031 funded project in which Odell has substantial equity in. Odell constantly criticizes X for KYC policies while Primal is KYCing people even harder. Primal uses the strike API which collects your name, address, contact info. Primal is able to link this information to your npub. How is this any different or better than what X is doing?

Primal doesn’t even use Nostr best practices. They are extremely nefarious. Example: Primal uses a non standard caching relay where they actually alter all alter users notes. When I use damus my images are uploaded to Nostr.build but if you view my image on primal you will see that the image url isn’t Nostr.build it is a different media file hosted by primal. They have actually constructed a new event without the users permission. They could at a later point in time change the media or remove the media that’s being displayed to primal users.

I could go on but I think you get the point.

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Discussion

MAHDOOD 6mo ago

These are big claims

Opensats and 1031 are different entities with different goals. Odell has a vote in opensats but doesn’t make all the decisions. Opensats has supported other clients as well so it’s not like they’re colluding to have primal dominate.

I also don’t really see what’s wrong with him promoting coldcard. It’s in his best interest to do so. I think the important thing is that he acknowledges that he is invested in coldcard which he does. I think it’s unreasonable to expect someone to go against their own self interests. In scientific research, people are expected to disclose their conflicts of interest. That doesn’t make their finding invalid, but the bias should be disclosed and Odell does that regularly.

I’m not a fan of the caching relay but I don’t believe that everyone must follow standard practices. It’s a free and open protocol and way too early to know what the standard practices should be. The market will reward or punish them for using it. If it’s bad for nostr, I think they’ll eventually get rid of that system. But I’ve heard that the caching relay is very beneficial to people in poorer countries where bandwidth is weak and Internet access is expensive. Damus may not be usable in those places. I also think that primal saves on battery usage but I could be wrong on that. I mostly agree with you that the caching relay is bad but to call it nefarious is a strong claim that doesn’t seem justified to me. Why would they act this way? How does that benefit them? Is this caching relay really a threat to nostr?

Regarding the media uploads, I think it’s a good thing they host their own media. It’s not a good thing to centralize all the media uploads with nostr build. That’s one spot that can be easily attacked. Also for a long time, primal provided the largest and free data file uploads. Having different options for uploading is a good thing imo. Nostr build could censor you or change your uploads too. But primal integrated blossom with nostr build. That means the content can’t be changed even if nostr build or primal media got shut down, the content will be available through mirrors. So I think they’re doing the right thing to keep media uploads decentralized and censorship resistant in case they or nostr build get attacked. Primal is also innovating a lot of cool new concepts into nostr. Some will work and some will fail but it’s good for nostr to see what sticks.

I don’t agree with all of primals practices though. And I don’t agree with all of Odell’s political views, but I think calling them nefarious or hypocrital is a bit harsh.