Nostrโs killer feature is the portability of your identity within a network of independent apps that adhere to at least a minimal set of common open standards.
Discussion
Open ecosystem
Itโs a beautiful thing
This is how I explain Nostr to friends and family:
NOSTR is like a Mall with ultimate freedom. There are various entrances to the mall, and you can choose your favorite.
You are you. You have your identity. You are free to express yourself and do as you please, knowing that others can do the same. Treat others the way youโd like to be treated.
With this in mind, you will soon be able to purchase and acquire goods and services from various shops.
Its an ever growing community with no mall cops involved.
The strength of open protocols is interoperability, and the "simpler" the protocol the better (SMTP, HTTP, matrix, etc.)
The downfall of open protocols is ossification through widespread adoption, then inflexibility by assigning its maintenance to a committee then deification of the institution that was entrusted with its maintenance (run by self important PhDs that lack approachability and are also not competent to make changes yet maintain the simplistic vision laid out in the original architecture.)
We have also seen open and interoperable protocols transition to closed and proprietary systems, this might be the most common outcome (such as Signal's use of XMPP but lack of federation, and Microsoft's inability to publish its document formats.)
In any case, none of this is good or bad, its only important to keep the protocol as interoperable as possible yet flexible as long as possible while maintaining the original vision that made it a success in the first place.
I suspect this will become even more important as it become easier for AI to impersonate people (or just pretend to be people who donโt exist).
๐ฏ itโs pretty powerful that I can use different clients on desktop and mobile and not even think twice about it
๐ฏ and as clients evolve and some differentiate themselves more, the ability to log into client A for one feature set, and then client B designed for a completely different focus or feature set while maintaining the same identity and contact list and even some content, is extremely powerful and practical.
