Nostr Web Client

Taking break from nostr for a few days. I need to get off tilt and focus on my work.

I’ve been reflecting on the state of things here as i start to use bluesky more often (i still like nostr much better fwiw).

I know this may offend some of you but I’m getting frustrated with how caught up we all are in our zapping wonderland with no concern for the outside world.

If we want this place to grow and succeed we really need to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves what it would be like to join nostr right now if you knew nothing about bitcoin. You would probably hate it, and stop using it within a day. Our worlds may revolve around bitcoin, but to a majority of people, they could give two shits about bitcoin.

Nostr is now considered by many outsiders as a “bitcoin project”. And I, for one, think that’s a terrible thing for nostr adoption and growth. There are brilliant people in this world who care about freedom tech but just don’t understand bitcoin yet and want nothing to do with it. And by making nostr all about bitcoin, we’ve scared those brilliant people off, who could have helped this place develop even further than it already has.

The way things stand right now, I see nostr adoption as being fully tied to bitcoin adoption. People won’t want to come here until they understand bitcoin. Instead of selling people just nostr, we now have to sell them nostr + bitcoin. And it shouldn’t be that way.

I’m still bullish on nostr, but we really need to do some self reflection at this point and ask ourselves what the correct path forward is.

See ya in a few internet frens 👋

arkinox 2y ago 💬 1

Good questions to work on answering

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Discussion

SER 2y ago

Anyone else have personal experience with this?

I have a friend on Mastodon who I recommended nostr to. He joined, was immediately flooded with what I can only describe as crypto-spam, and bounced. I've spent the past couple of days trying to convince him it's not all that bad, once you get your follows dialed in.

The issue is that the default new users see is pretty awful. Like you say, a casual glance presents a strong "crypto bro" vibe. Personally, I stayed only because the NIPs are so inspiring.

Also, Jack's somehow become the face of Nostr, to the point outside people think he's the inventor. I guess that's neither here nor there, except that Nostr looks from the outside like "Jack's Bitcoin scheme," which is an awkward preconception to have to overcome.