As long as the server cannot change anything you do or did, and you get to choose which server to use, including putting up your own, it's a better model. Dumb server, smart client. You can always opt for P2P nostr if you want and if your friends are online at the moment.
Discussion
How is that better than no server, smart P2P client? Running a nostr relay requires having a publicly accessible server, and it doesn't provide access to the totality of nostr, just what has been posted to it.
The primary objections to P2P I've seen has been speed and reliability. In my experience with Freenet, speed is the real objection, reliability is imperfect, but relays will not retain every note forever either.
To rephrase that, with nostr you *NEED* a publicly accessible server to be a full participant in the network. With P2P you can choose to run a server, even privately, to lighten the load on your end clients.
In P2P if you ARE the server. Its the same thing. You can choose to put a server up OR keep your phone connected at all times (virtually impossible these days). Otherwise, if you are offline, people would never find your posts.
Think about relays as proxies to your device's database. They help others get your stuff when you are not online. Relays are not a database. They are a simple temporary storage of your notes.
> In P2P if you ARE the server. Its the same thing.
Only in a very reductive sense. The accessibility requirements alone for nostr relays vs a P2P node are huge difference, and your phone does *not* need to remain online constantly to participate in Freenet (the only one of the bunch I'm willing to speak authoritatively about). The network stores the data, not just relays it.
I agree freenet is probably too heavy to run on a phone but you can run a gateway, problem solved, and you have far more flexibility for how you run such a gateway, it can be totally private to you, very different from running a relay.
I don't mean to be combative about this (I hope it doesn't come off this way) ultimately like I said, the user base matters far more than the tech. I do wish nostriches were more familiar with what came before, though.
relays technically are only forwarding traffic, but the whole thing would not work without caching, so they are blending it with databases, and because of that, they are also starting to move into the realm of distributed databases.
it's pretty much mandatory for nostr to blend relaying and caching together so there must also be a concomitant development of appropriate consensus algorithms that fit the use case. some people think that means blockchains but it's not needed to have strong consistency. eventual consistency, and only driven by user activity, is what seems to me like the right fit for nostr. this is solveable with merkle DAGs, tied to users.
on a side note, there is a lot of confusion of domains in the discussion of architecture in nostr. it is a simple fact that the way a relay will structure its caching depends on the users. trying to make the strategy about a subject is blurring the boundary between serving users and serving an application model, and is going to lead to rigid and difficult to modify systems.
The thing is: #nostr isn’t much p2p oriented right now. Most of work til now consists in doing JavaScripts frontend. That’s cool but #bitcoin cyber hornets 🐝 don’t stop until it’s totally decentralized. From the ground to the top. If you start doing something centralized it’s the same as #ethereum keep doing round after round.
I don't understand why you keep repeating that nostr is centralized. You can choose your relay (or put your own relay) and there are 100s of clients to choose from. We don't even need a blockchain to centralize a consensus. We don't even rely on a single node implementation like Bitcoin core is.
Relays are just temporary storage for events. In the end, each Nostr client is as decentralized as it gets.
Yes but we should bootstrap users inside a mesh of udp p2p servers(“providers”). Right now it’s only will and a dozen running very targetable servers. Aka. Ethereum/AWS/… #bitcoin should be in the core of #nostr from its foundation(L1) not on paper bitcoin (lightning). As an exemple bitcoin can bootstrap to a network of p2p from its foundation. That’s a ground to build from. Every single guy who tried something centralized have failed in this area. Or will fail in the near future. Bitcoiners require 100% decentralization or it’s not real plebs.
Many clients already do that. There are only few that are still in the old model with a list of bootstrapping relays. I think you are stuck in the past.
Bitcoin nodes already do too much to be bothered by Nostr events. They shouldnt be used for this. There is no need to destroy the money layer with social media posts.
But feel free to code your P2P nostr network. I am building mine as well. Its a good layer 2 for the relay network.
I've also been thinking about this. Relays should be in a p2p DHT and index and retrieve hashes of notes and pubkeys for each other.
👆👆👆 this guy knows
So let's build it.
Yes but where are the incentives ?
The end of walled gardens owned by big-tech. Freedom and a chance for a better future for humanity.
#bitcoiners will have to fix it anyway. Twitter is doomed by @elonmuk and his friends. Cyber hornets were coming from Reddit to Twitter and right now nostr is the only usable solution. But has its flaws.
I'm not saying its aliens, but I also don't think relays in other places, care wat EU does. Twitter only cares because they operate in the EU. Global Internet ftw. You do have global access right? 😎
tl;dr
Fuck the EU
Il n'y a que l'EU, certes elle a adopté tant de lois contraignantes qui viennent de FR, de lUK et recopiées partout même aux USA..en 2026 malgré le retard sur la monnaie numérique je pense qu'ils pencheront sur la décentralisation..Quid des USA vous ne pensez qu'ils oeuvrent sur le numérique plutôt Bitcoin qu'autre..tout est possible qu'ils mettent la main dessus juste en votant une Loi type patriot act vu son niveau d'endettement exponentiel !?
Well it’s not only EU today every government agency has learned it’s way to CEO house in order to sensor at some level. #bitcoin has survived from the highest level from the same problem. Relays can be easily used to censor as most operators will not hold responsability over 3rd party notes.
Vrai
We already have those. Nostr.band is one of them.
And we can build in incentives ... LN and zaps make this possible.
Zaps was cool but easily censored. Lightning has many flaws that could be addressed by a mesh webrtc2.0-like p2p network to provide tx information doing a merge between bitcoin and nostr networks and releasing us from all this all-in-one C++ bundle that bitcoin-core has become.
Curious to hear more about this idea. Let's take this discussion offline.
I think we can call any server maintainer in less than 30 minutes and order they act accordingly EU Rule number X and it’s gone! 
Go for it. You are not the first one to attack the network with this bullshit. :)
I don’t think decentralization and sovereign are bullshit. Own your notes, own your audience. Don’t delegate to 3rd party as they will be points of failure for censorship. Being p2p you can control your audience one by one. Per request.
That's not what I said. The bullshit was for your idea threatening Nostr with of EU compliance. Feel free to have your own notes on your own relay, anywhere you want.