Nostr Web Client

I love the fact that we don't have a centralized naming system/issuer for NOSTR -- keeps it free/open/flexible/censorship resistant. We've got NIP-05 which helps with more friendly names, but that ultimately outsources the problem back to DNS and the traditional domain system. This means we still inherit the points of control around ICANN and domain owners.

I think we should have a friendly username system on NOSTR which is not dependent on DNS in any way. To do this well you need to come up with a protocol/agreement for how these get issued. I should be able to show up and say "I'll take 'monkey'", for example, and as long as no one else has claimed it yet I should be able to get it.

The obvious problem is "won't all early users of such a system just name-squat on all the good names". That's usually what would happen, unless we could introduce a cost to acquiring a name. But the cost should not be paid to any centralized provider. So the concept I've been writing about I call "name-bonds". You can use the digital scarcity property of bitcoin to limit how many names someone can issue to themselves based on how much bitcoin they will bond to the name. Tie it to digital scarcity and you can make issuance more fair.

Still trying to get feedback/thinking on the high-level idea. Have you seen anything like this? Do you believe such a system could work?

Nuh 9mo ago

What do you think about Urbit names? Something like "ravmel-ropdyl" ... a name that is readable and maybe memorable, at least as much as phone number, but we can do it so that it is "unmonetized", meaning you can't choose it, you can't sell it, you don't need to renew it, just a random name that you get if you pay the Bitcoin fees to the miners.

If you are interested in that, let me know, I am working on a spec for that to compliment my work on Pkarr.org, for the occasions that short readable names are necessary.

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Discussion

David King 9mo ago

I’d love to review and give feedback on the spec you’re working on. I haven’t used Urbit names. I had not considered 1) readable/memorable but 2) “unmonetized” as a path and I’d like to learn more about the benefits/tradeoffs here.

My assumptions were that most people would expect to be able to pick a name that feels personal/self-expression-oriented. I also assumed the “land-grab” nature of user-selected/personal/attractive/“monetized” would draw people in to own/speculate which can be a powerful marketing tool for a new system.

I haven’t seen an approach that both 1) admits those assumptions while 2) avoiding a centralized issuer/marketplace/“DAO” entity to receive payment/throttle-the-landgrab of issuance. that’s the particular set of tradeoffs I’ve been exploring, but I’m interested in learning about lots of different approaches

I suspect naming is an important area to innovate to make decentralized technologies simpler for more people to understand/use.