Relying on funding instead of business models, needs to go regardless. That's not bad news.
There are dozens of us. Thank you for your service, nostr:nprofile1qqs2js6wu9j76qdjs6lvlsnhrmchqhf4xlg9rvu89zyf3nqq6hygt0spzemhxue69uhku6t9dshxummnw3erztnrdakj7qg3waehxw309ahx7um5wgh8w6twv5hsz9thwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjme03d56gx. I appreciate your efforts as well. There's very little appreciation for independent devs on Nostr, and we should be more vocal about it.
Agreed, the business model for BTC/Lightning solutions marketing to new users will eventually eat itself. And I don’t mean in Ouroboros style (at current churn rates, there’s very little money to be made from naive new users anyway).
The bad news is that with its downfall, some of the funding keeping Nostr software alive will likely disappear. The good news is that… well, there are dozens of us trying to keep Nostr alive, regardless of financial incentives.
Discussion
I remember all the talk about sustainable businesses during SEC-01, about a year and a half ago.
Meanwhile, zero businesses and the two businesses that were present and served as "north stars" are both gone.
That's a lot of walking and talking, for very little walking the talk.
VC/PE in a nutshell.
Full disclosure: I used to work for investment banks (as a techie; not front office, M&A, or anything fancy but close enough to interact with VC and PE folks). I still get a personal laugh out of all the finance bro memes here on nostr, especially when folks end up parodying the very finance culture they mock.
Add some laser eyes and a (a conveniently curated to allow him to profit from fiat) cypherpunk persona to the finance bro in a jumper meme, and you get the stereotypical Nostr VC-backed crypto bro.
The difference is mainly that some people in traditional finance are actually making money out of it.