You're thinking like a socialist because you've lived in the fiat world too long. You're stuck in the mindset that everything needs to be free in order to attract people—but all you're really attracting are bots, scammers, and freeloaders. Just look at X (Twitter): it looks active, but strip away the bots and spam and you're left with maybe 30% real people. The rest is noise propped up by the illusion of “free.”

Nostr is different. It’s real. It’s organic. It’s growing slowly—and that’s good. Growth should be earned, not faked. We don’t need fake metrics or mass adoption from people who won't stick around. We need users who contribute.

You’re against charging people, but that’s the future. Charging a few sats to follow someone—say, 3 sats or more—would filter out low-effort bots and create a more legitimate network. Follower counts aren’t bad in concept; they’re bad because they’re broken. They’re gamed. They inflate egos. But they can be reimagined to serve a healthier purpose.

You want to remove features like follower counts entirely? That’s not the solution. That’s just giving up. Fix the system, don’t delete it. The real issue is everyone wanting everything for free. That’s fiat thinking. We need to stop thinking like socialists and start thinking in terms of sustainability. If we want a free market internet, we need to act like it.