Lessons from the bluesky-verse: add notifications to your app for user retention. Bsky spams you with notifications (even of single likes) by default. It's working. I keep opening the app. Copy it.
Discussion
I agree. Push notifications are important for #nostr growth
Remember when Satoshi said "if we port Bitcoin to Linux, we might increase the number of active nodes by 3%. If we add minimize to tray in windows, we will get 300%”
I'm using Pokey on Android and it changes the way you interact with Nostr 💯. Instant notifications are great 🤙
BRO POKEY IS SO GOOD BRO. USE POKEY.
One man's "user-retention" is another's "addictive-programming"
Almost every notification I get is to inform me that yet another fake Peter McCormack has followed me. I'm just tired.
I THINK WE CAN WIN WITHOUT RESORTING TO ADDICTIVE DARK PATTERNS.
It's useful and interesting information though.
I only installed the app; I don’t even have an account 😂😂
algo/picked for you notis are baaaaad!!
but useful-valuable push notis are gooooood (ex: DMs, replies, notis for specific npub notes)
It’s not a dark pattern. It’s just a good UX (something Nostr devs hate, I know)
Why do you think we hate good UX?
The Nostr ethos is “the customer is always wrong”. Its top-down design pushed on plebs from on high.
The ethos is very deeply embedded. It began with concepts like “no deletes”.
Trivially, this a provably wrong take.
One dev making a decision not to add delete requests is not the same as all of nostr not adding delete requests.
See table of nostr projects that have added or plan to add delete: https://github.com/nostrability/nostrability/issues/68
The whole point of nostr is competition, and devs making independent decisions. The opposite of bluescam, x sole decision maker approach etc.
Yeah and I fought for that tooth and nail and will continue to fight for it. We need to force devs to understand
It is amazing to me that fiatjaf only just realized this issue with not storing delete requests. If fiatjaf didn’t realize this right away from the spec then i suspect many devs implementing deletes will also have issues with this.
There’s a reason damus has delayed this feature. I have been trying to set up a design in nostrdb that tracks deletes reliably. 
Cache invalidation literally being the first one of “only two hard things in computer science” 😅😅😅
We have delete requests, what are you taking about?
You were there, I know you remember what it was like.
Bitcoin in particular loves to glom onto a mantra and repeat it like a hive mind. The devs were all in lockstep that “there’s no deletes on the internet”. And they almost got away with it if it wasn’t for some vocal users pointing out how retarded they were. The community eventually changed their tune.
It’s an example of how it always is. It’s a myth that the ecosystem supports independent dev competition. There are thought leaders and everyone falls in line until the thought leaders are publicly embarrassed and need to quietly change their tune (without admitting they were wrong of course)
I still wanna see when people reply to me though!
I don't think it's necessarily a dark pattern, I'd like the option to choose which things I get a PN for
We've already won. We're just early.
I have never employed notifications for any app ever. Turn em off especially for all social media apps for your own sanity and use the bare essentials if you must.
Notifications are turned off everywhere in my world. Computers and phones.
I'll see the notes, zaps, follows, and so on when I open the app.
Same here. That’s quality of live.
I don’t think so.
I always struggle with this; where’s the line? Isn’t this a terrible, attention seeking, dark pattern that we don’t want to mirror?
And, on the other hand, are we fighting with a hand tied behind our back? Where’s the line on what ethical grounds you should yield to in the seek of adoption? Is adoption even the right metric? I thought it was but it’s definitely not to me anymore.
Which is the line that, once you cross it, you end up undermining the whole endeavor?
You enable notifications.
Users can disable them if they dont want them. Its always been like that for notifications.
I don't think it's a dark pattern, just a notification that something interesting happened. I actually find it useful information.
I want to be able to turn on notifications for posts from accounts I'm interested in just like Twitter. This would drastically increase my Nostr usage
This is one of the worst aspects of legacy social media. But I do think being able to opt in to digests of relevant activity would be very good.
Apps are competing for your attention. As long as you can opt-out, I think it's fine.
It wouldn't work for me tho, my grapheneos blocks notifications from almost everything haha
Thank you, I've been asking for this as well.
