Reflections on Twitter vs Nostr after #MarchOffTwitter
Free Speech — The feeling of not having anyone, with the power to suspend or ban you, looking over your shoulder while you post is liberating. Free speech exists on Nostr. It does not fully exist on Twitter (yet).
Incentives — The incentives to post on Nostr are far greater than those on Twitter. You earn Bitcoin directly for quality content. This is game-changing and hard to overstate.
Algorithm — There is no algo on Nostr. You simply see the posts of those you follow in chronological order. Don’t like what someone’s posting? Unfollow. It’s that simple. No ads or algo suggested posts either. Just pura vida.
Ownership — On Nostr, you truly own your account. You own your posts. And you can contribute to the protocol and apps just like everyone else. No more tagging Elon for every qualm you have with the user experience. This is incredibly refreshing and leads to a feeling of personal responsibility.
Tone — Broadly speaking, the tone of voice on Nostr is authentic, whereas the tone of Twitter is snarky. It’s nice not to be inundated with sarcasm. People sound happy and optimistic on Nostr, whereas on Twitter everyone sounds like they’re complaining.
Technical competence — The typical Nostrich is far more tech savvy than the typical Twitter user. You can get better answers to technical questions on Nostr than anywhere else I’ve tried.
Scammers — You won’t find many scammers on Nostr. And if you do, they won’t have much of a following. The reason is that you cannot delete posts, and you cannot block someone from commenting on your posts. There is nowhere to hide if you try to scam people on Nostr. You’ll be found out immediately. On Twitter, scammers easily hide behind a multitude of blocks and deleted posts.
Building the future — On Nostr, we’ve moved beyond tired olde arguments of “Bitcoin vs fiat” and “Bitcoin vs scamcoin.” Instead, we are actively building towards the future on a Bitcoin / LN / Nostr standard. No need to post the “it’s all so tiresome” meme.
Scale — Today, Twitter still has far more scale than Nostr. Twitter is the primary battleground of ideas. And Twitter has more far-reaching news and information. Therefore, in order to stay tapped in to the broader consciousness collective, and to wake people up to the perils of fiat and the benefits of Bitcoin, it still makes sense to have a presence on Twitter. Over time, however, Nostr will grow to far grander scale than any centralized social media platform due to its free, open source nature.
Connection — Nostr connects freedom minded individuals in China, America, and everywhere else in the world. No firewall can stop people from accessing Nostr. By comparison, every centralized social media app has to abide by authoritarian laws in each respective country. Nostr is connecting the world, and it’s not asking permission in order to do so.
In sum, I’ll to continue to have a presence on Twitter, but will be primarily posting to Nostr, as I believe it is the future of global, permissionless communications.
