Nostr is not the only social media protocol
As far as the free and open social media protocol goes, there are many competing projects, such as @bluesky and the AT Protocol, Mastodon, Matrix, and there will be many more. While we don’t yet know which one will truly take hold and solidify the thesis is that one will have a chance at becoming a standard like HTTP or SMTP and become a core feature of the internet stack.
While a “decentralised Twitter” might be the jumping-off point as a proof of concept Nostr offers so much more. Nostr could be a foundational core technology standard to make social media and data sharing and, more importantly, controlled data access a native part of the internet.
Protocols like Nostr are not simply aiming to substitute the current social media and data ownership landscape but upgrade it and tackle key concerns of data centralisation and privacy. The hope is that giving people ownership of their data and giving apps permissioned access to it could improve public conversation’s ability and allow technology to truly serve the people, which helps hold governments and corporations accountable.
Not only that, but it opens up the technology stack for the entire world to develop on and create solutions. With that level of possible participation, we could see plenty of innovation that hopefully makes it all a lot more fun and freeing to use the internet, like it once was before its corporatisation.