That is one thing we talked about in January. There was an idea that nostr would somehow be able to accommodate smaller groups that would be somewhat separated from the big pool of nostr general. I remember #[4] being involved in discussions and having some ideas about this. I'm hoping to see him back on nostr as his dev skills and experience are valuable. I recall thoughts that maybe clients based on certain interests or even relays based on certain interests would start to pop up. There were, to be fair, quite a few who predicted that as nostr grew it would just end up like other social media and they were pessimistic about it's ability to maintain the values that have made it so engaging. As time goes on I do see it as the responsibility of individuals to contribute to what we want to see happening and I don't see the inevitability of a large nostr as being a detriment if we are able to perhaps establish smaller groups built on the nostr protocol.
Discussion
I am hopeful in as much as the basic design of the protocol, separating ID from client from database, has a lot of flexibility built into it. It'll never be just one thing like the old social media model - there will be a Nostr to suit everyone's needs.
That's very much what we hopefully will see. I suspect many might not be fully aware of that idea that, as a protocol, nostr is a communication infrastructure into which we can interact on our own terms. The monetary incentive for certain clients to want to grow into the next big platform and then dominate the on ramps into the protocol do seem worth being cognisant of, which is why seeing some smaller clients being able to attract users is crucial. Again I'll drop #[4] into the conversation in the hope it might pull him away from his other work to share his thoughts with us.