It’s a critical take on Nostr, but if we distill the core innovation - it’s the simple cryptographic Event JSON payload - and the protocol’s openness.

Websocket relays are ok, but Nostr can work over hybrid p2p or REST. The query engine is ok, but it’s basic and has design faults and limitations.

So why write this post?

I think we can expand on todays relays and evolve the event transport layer, likely to many simultaneous methods including a p2p layer, and greater privacy.

I think we can reimagine the event query engine, allowing for more performant and expressive queries. Perhaps GraphQL, maybe feature from new streaming databases like SurrealDB.

I think if we open the box a little more, we can start to explore new and powerful innovations that can expand upon the NIP-01 primitives.

If we start to experiment and challenge ourselves to discover new ways to make Nostr unstoppable, I think we will find amazing new capabilities are possible and bring forth a wave of communications innovation.