Some aspects of the ecosystem are more easily monetized than the software development: operating relays, image hosting, etc. I could imagine a viable model where the branded version of the software ships posting to a set of relays that require payment, etc., by default. Newbies will naturally use the paid services, and some of the experts will continue to use them as a way of supporting the developers.

What really matters—the war we've been fighting for 2+ decades now—is that the *protocols* stay open and interoperable. Actually, it also matters that they stay simple enough that core functionality can easily be reimplemented and servers can be run by any reasonably geeky person.

At the end of the day, I think a lot of this comes down to culture. What are the nostr equivalents of a hard supply cap, "not your keys, not your coins", hodl, and the other touchstones of Bitcoin culture that seem to be working so far?