Replying to Avatar rabble

Today, I had a conversation with a friend's acquaintance who expressed a desire to "do something about social media, to create something that is ours." She was unfamiliar with Nostr and only vaguely aware of Mastodon, though she had heard of Bluesky and Threads.

She represents the ideal target audience for Nostr. Once I explained our project, her excitement was palpable. Although initially skeptical about Bitcoin, she showed interest in an economic model not reliant on advertising and was open to exploring alternative models.

Several key points emerged from our discussion. Firstly, the ease of joining and locating acquaintances on Nostr is crucial. For instance, the process of installing TestFlight, then navigating back to nos.social to click a link and install Nostr via TestFlight, proved challenging. Her attempt to Google Nostr nearly led her astray. nostr:npub1a8jzweysxa9qmtmht874736aalm0lwdsl306nrys9d05ktlrhw3qcr5pj4 i think, this underscores the need for someone with tech marketing/communications expertise to overhaul nostr.com. The current site should be repositioned as developer.nostr.com.

We must simplify the process of finding and connecting with known contacts on Nostr. It's essential to communicate the value proposition of Nostr to new users, whether they learn about it through friends or media. Our focus shouldn't be on creating more content for Bitcoin enthusiasts, as there's already a plethora of information available for those familiar with wallet operations.

Another aspect that stood out was Nostr's multi-app nature. Nostr isn't just Damus, Nos, Amethyst, or Habla.news. It's a platform where various apps can operate using the same data, contacts, and services, all under the user's control. For those with a developer mindset, the sheer breadth of projects within Nostr demonstrates the vibrancy and scale of our endeavor. Projecting this magnitude is crucial for attracting users who are deciding where to invest their time.

I believe we could benefit from explainer videos that highlight why Nostr is both important and interesting. During our conversation, I showcased various apps: Primal for a web social feed, Habla and Yakihonne for longer-form blogging, Flockstr for events, Wherostr for geolocation, and Highlighter for layering different functionalities. These examples illustrate the diversity and versatility of our platform.

I didn't delve into Nostr nests, marketplaces, Wavlake, Streamstr, and more, but it's clear there's much to explore.

This conversation has led me to believe that we should proactively share the Nostr story, positioning it as the future of social networking. This approach will also help us differentiate from platforms like Threads, Pixelfed, Mastodon, and Bluesky. While these platforms are based on open protocols, they operate as single-app, vertical silos.

Our unique offering is the unified 'login' across diverse apps, granting users not just control over their algorithms but their entire app experience. They can even use multiple apps simultaneously.

The impact of a single Thai TikTok video in attracting a Thai user community to Nostr exemplifies the power of targeted storytelling. We should harness similar strategies to broaden our reach and influence. Talking about how this is a whole new way of social, not just one app.

My experience as a decentralizion enthusiast who is fairly tech savvy and was excited about the possibilities of nostr: it has boomer energy, difficult discoverability (of people, topics, and all the awesome "apps"), it puts too much on the user. No ability to protect yourself from bad actors.

Boomer energy: stuck on ideology in a faith without works kind of way. This comes from the Bitcoin mentality ie "this is the future, it's the way and the light" ...but it hasn't solved peer to peer completely after 15 years.

Discover: search and community is lacking, reliant on hashtags you have to stumble on.

User ask: average user is retarded, I'm retarded most days, just let me click around I don't want to write a program myself to do basic tasks.

Good things: vibe is friendly, builders ship a lot and fast, zaps are cool, ui is better than blue sky, minds, mastodon, urbit etc

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I'll add these examples from farcaster, which I think is getting a lot of these things right. Channels and the client list on their website are two huge advantages.

Channels shown here, easy to search and one click join and pin the top and for each post you can specify a channel. It's slick.

That would be great..

These are app specific sore points, and not nostr.

Ive said elsewhere, apps/clients are nostr, just like warpcast is farcaster. How people use your protocol is everything. Social clients are the intro for most end users, if they aren't useable neither its all useless.

I believe if the ecosystem of apps just gets one viral app made from left field, an omeagle, reddit, 4chan or other app that was ahead of its time and not existing elsewhere then this will highlight the power and bring people to nostr. Normies won't come because of principles, they will come for $$ or attention. Neitherorf these exist on nostr like they do on other parts of the interwebs.

Facebook and gmail is not the internet, no.

Okay have a useless protocol with nothing on it and no people then

To the end user that distinction is absolutely meaningless.

Are you talking about Nostr or some client?

I agree with what you wrote, but this is not inherent to Nostr itself. All that critique mostly addresses client side of things here, except user base I guess. When you write about UI it doesn't make sense, since Nostr has no UI on it;s own

Most of them. The ui in the ecosystem is overall good. Yes these are client side issues because the clients are how people use the protocol. Clients are nostr.

I love you so much. “Boomer energy” killed me. 💅🏻

Still has me in stitches 😂

spot on analysis ❤️

Well said! Plurality will only grow if the Nostr experience (and possibilities) gets good enough so users that dissent with the current dominant tendencies and ideologies find enough value. Nostr is currently great for Bitcoin/Privacy/Self-sovereignty enthusiasts but has yet a long path to evolve to attract other and more voices. We will perceive Nostr success when it’s hard to find any dominant tendency, basically when it becomes an interesting mess.

"It has boomer energy" 😂👌

But u can say "retard" freely. :)

This is a key feature as I lost my first Twitter account to that word

Asi esta clarito #hispano

nostr:note16sec524erzqq4efcxted3rgev3auzkuq2gzrtlm0jrujc9ekn0jsqtx92a

That's what I think, and it'll still happening unless we overcome sectarianism and elitism.