It's getting much easier to join then it was last year. It just takes time for the developers to keep improving Nostr. They are doing an excellent job.
Discussion
Lots of work going on I agree, but key stats are showing as lower now than at this point last year. As in Nostr looks to have shrunk.
That's probably because users came here to check things out than left.
Social media eventually gets boring. In fact I'm getting bored of nostr already. They need to keep adding more features like finding others based on gender, profession, hobbies, etc or relationship status etc
Facebook was one of the best social medias out there because of all the features out there.
I'm sure they will keep adding features but until then the userbase will stay small.
I think the main issue is that there are core features that are either impossible or very hard.
- Assured post deletion
- Assured account deletion
- Accurate follower counts across clients
- DMs you can send with confidence the other person can actually see them
- Username and password login option (can be abstracted, like Warpcast or Bluesky)
Nostr has none of these. My feeling is that it's just impossible to scale without a certain subset of core features like this. As in there is nothing you can offer users in return for not having these, you just have to tick these boxes—or accept that the network will always be niche. Niche can be good in certain contexts though, this is just the town square one.
All of those are business opportunities.
Deletion is likely a false aim. Almost nothing gets permanently deleted on the internet if someone decides to keep it, except in a datacenter fire or a similar backup loss situation. Self-hosting your content on your own auth-protected relay and not broadcasting widely gives you deletion in the same scope as running your own website. Then you have a sliding dial of trusting some third party where you weigh the service pricing against your requirements in exchange for less expertise required of you.
DMs are solvable by a network of DM-specialized relays that maintain awareness of their peers and a client that knows how to talk to them.
Username/pass logins are not constrained by technical requirements but liability. The user base needs to be big enough to pay for the legal protection of such a service provider, who is in essence a password manager. The current attitude of ‘here you go, but we’re not reliable’ is especially cringe for such a service. In a business setting, this can be done by a central authority per business entity.
As for follower counts. I know they matter, but they don’t have to be global or for everyone. Need an accurate number? Get it from a DVM or a service that will count it for a fee, because it requires a targeted crawl.
Deletion is not a false aim, though. I feel the "nothing gets permanently deleted on the internet" has always been a flawed argument. This is emotional more than technical
There is a threshold over which most people will consider the deletion obligation to have been fulfilled, even though they will not be aware of the nuts and bolts (as technical people will). And that threshold is what matters.
ATProto does meet that threshold, with deletion at the PDS level, even though the relays make take time to delete or overwrite the event (ATProto relays are non-archival by design.) So on ATProto you can have a button that says "delete this post" and it'll be *accurate enough*. Or delete my account, the same, *accurate enough*.
Nostr doesn't meet that threshold, it's well under, and the result is that most average users will feel emotionally vulnerable. You have to have a button that says "request delete", which is a total freak-out phrase. The average user will become intensely aware that they don't really own their posts, someone else does and they have to ask that someone else politely to remove them if desired. Again, that's freak-out territory.
Also most cases of post deletion are deletes before anyone has seen the post, so the "things can be screenshotted" argument is also null. (Plus only 0.001% of users are screenshot worthy people.)
Basically for today's user you have to be over that threshold, even though of course you'll never get to a place where there is true and all-encompassing deletion.
We arrive in the same place. All deletions need to be honored by someone. The assurance of trust can be provided by a relay or a relay and client combo on nostr in a very similar manner than in other places in exchange for some decentralization (and you keep quite a lot of the decentralization on nostr compared to elsewhere). Someone who considers deletion essential to peace of mind would consider this a service. Hence, a business model.
But a business should be taken seriously and lots of things built on nostr are more showcases than services and barely any terms of service exist. The trust is low because we seem to be in a sandbox. The fact that the sandbox sits in an open square is indeed a dichotomy.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that last paragraph.