IMO, it doesn’t help that as soon as someone joins, every "Nostr influencer", bot, and even some enthusiastic maxis start coaching them to set up a non-custodial wallet so they "can be zapped", which is supposedly "the Nostr experience". Most folks end up using something like Alby, receive a few sats, and then realise they have to pay to open channels, setup a ligthining node or sign up for an expensive cloud subscription just to actually receive their welcome zaps. It’s frustrating and feels like a scam. By that point, the damage is done... both to Nostr and to new users perception of BTC. If they were already sceptical, this just becomes "proof" that it’s all a scam. If they weren’t, chances are they’ll become sceptical now.

I’ve got nothing against Alby or any of the BTC businesses here, but if the BTC influencers, maxis, and businesses could please, please, stop sending newcomers down a path where losing sats and paying for unnecessary services becomes their very first experience with Nostr, I’d be immensely grateful.

By the way, before anyone says I’m exaggerating, this has happened to three different people I onboarded. The last one was nostr:nprofile1qqsyr80gx8trp6e4putucnhzsrwwu504xrzneg2tfsdvq3urrekmjfcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2ap0qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgu3wvfskuep093a3yk. I’ve lost a few sats myself due to the non-custodial wallet "temporarily holds your sats until you pay" limbo.

To all the Lightning enthusiasts out there: if you really want new users to start zapping, just point them toward WoS or one of the other custodial wallets. You don’t have to like custodial wallets, and you can absolutely encourage users to move to non-custodial ones or withdraw on-chain once they have enough sats. Just don’t let their very first experience be “set up this very complicated stack or pay us $9.90 per month” so they can retrieve a few hundred sats received in their first month. Otherwise, you’re mostly damaging not just Nostr’s reputation, but BTC’s as well.