Heard some chatter around nostr vs. DID at this last Bitcoin conference.
Genuinely asking, why is there so much more excitement (or at least that’s how it *feels* to me) around nostr vs. DID?
**I acknowledge that I’m asking this on nostr
Discussion
Gotta be the zappin
If you ain’t fappin then you better be zappin!
DON’T BE ALARMED FOLKS 
😂😂😂
Uhh just realized that doesn’t actually explain
Follow + Zap = Fap
IM ALWAYS ZAPPIN’ CHEEKS BABY
Someone needs to actually implement something cool using DID and then it will be interesting. Like where are DIDs for Nostr? Is there even a NIP for that?
What is did
Uh oh Pandora’s box open
I’m not the only one wondering! 🥹
Lol
Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.
#Nostr is brilliance in simplicity. DIDs are way more complex.
Nostr vs DID is false dichotomy
Digital Identities?
Nostr is just stupid easy. So easy that I can understand it. It's simplicity is inviting.
I like easy
DID is so perfect that after 10 years it doesn’t have one successful application. It’s been a case of death by committee - instead of build and iterate.
The problem it attempts to solve is important - and Nostr certainly doesn’t attempt to address a complete matching problem space.
My biggest issue with DIDs are that no one ever seems to say, “hey, you can use this same mechanism or base spec from DIDs to solve that problem - it’s well thought out and will work well”. They just say, please adopt 100% of a 1000 page spec no one seems to care about in entirety.
Nostr was a simple and less controversial idea that existed first and then people started using. Bear in mind that Nostr is few years already out.. but there were all those first years where not many were paying attention until some cool ups popped up. Maybe DID will go through the same
😬 Too many falsehoods in your statement I’m afraid
Interesting.. do you think I’m wrong?. I’m happy to correct myself but I think I discovered Nostr few months ago but I have few friends that were testing it long time ago so maybe there will be a day for DID?. But help me if I’m wrong I have no problems with correcting myself
DID has been out there for years , it’s not newer than Nostr
Oh yes that’s true..
I give you that point as it’s true. DID as a concept was out there for long time. When I answered I was mostly thinking on the DOD arguments being discussed since the web5 concept was coined that happened after Nostr but yes DID in general is true it’s older
and it's not being used for a reason
What is DID?
maybe this has already been hashed out 😅 but I had yet to hear about it!
and as a creator I was curious!
😂 one person called me a socialist for my praise of nostr and it’s potential versus a not-to-be-named well-funded app that uses DID…
Everyone else I talked to asked me to help them get set up on a nostr client (or talked about how great it was because they were already using it) 🤷♂️
What app uses DID?
Oh boy, I’ve missed the great csuwildcat 😂
New podcast called What Nostr DID.
*elmo fire gif*
DJ Khaled has entered the chat
Thank me later
#[3] Coming for you
Yooo!! Need that
Saw what you DID there
Or maybe just something simple? What is nostr? What are zaps? How to make money on nostr? What is centralization and decentralization? Just really explaining it simple terms to people other than software and computer engineering fields. I guarantee not a lot of people know what’s nostr besides nerds and dorks ( in a good way)
DID is synonymous with KYC for me.
An nsec private key is working just fine for me.
Privacy is an underappreciated commodity in normie land.
NIPs are simple and anyone can follow. You can build something quick just with the first few NIPs without anyone's permission and it will take you a weekend. It’s public domain.
DID spec is massive and most people will only read it if paid to do so, even if they don’t admit it. Not everyone can collaborate as you have to request permission to do so.
Because we can actually all use Nostr. From the moment anyone got interested enough in Nostr to try it there was an app or client they could hop onto and see it in action. And not just one, but multiple apps. And they’ve developed rapidly, and listened to their users to give them features they want.
Yes
Zion app, for example, feels like any other social media app.
The ability to change apps on the fly with nostr IS the message of this technology. I don’t need to understand how nostr works in the background because of this ability. It feels different. I close damus and open plebstr and see the same feed. Then I open irisio on my laptop and see the same thing. Experientially I feel that no one except me controls my identity.
Maybe Zion is better, but it feels like facebook with extra steps. It’s closed garden at best right now.
I got really excited for a while about Sphinx chat, which I think is a similar concept to Zion. I tried to get on Zion but was put on a waitlist. Same with Bluesky. So I still haven’t even tried either of those even though they may be great. Meanwhile I have multiple Nostr clients that I’ve been able to try and find my favorite and establish a network of people I interact with. And like you said, even if one client goes away I can just login with my key to another and pick up where I left off. I have no need to change to something else at this point. The other apps/services are dead on arrival, or at the very least they have a hard uphill battle. It would be better to integrate with Nostr and expand on what’s already established here. If Bluesky was a kickass Nostr client that blew others out of the water, I’d eagerly try it and maybe switch to it. But I’m not switching networks because there’s no reason to.
I’m on Zion. I can assure you, you are not missing out …
I was on zion waitlist since summer and about a month ago finally received an invitation. Created my DID, logged in and there is nothing. Just a few groups with 7-10 members. No activity at all. By that time I was already here on nostr so it was over. They should pivot asap and become like facebook-groups-on-nostr client or they gonna die. Network effect is a bitch.
I agree. I think anyone trying to build a social network integrated with bitcoin has to make that pivot at this point and make their service interoperable with Nostr.
Because nostr is simple and the DID people never figured out how to make their stuff simple.
OTOH nostr is simple because it glosses over a lot of stuff, resulting in a dangerously insecure system. Once nostr is more secure, it'll be a lot less simple. Maybe not as complex as DIDs. Or maybe even more complex as nostr will probably have to figure out how to fix their bad design choices with complex backwards compatible upgrades. We'll see.
I'm glad both are being built. May the best system win.
It's not that simple. DIDs are just an identity scheme, not a social network. They're not directly competitors. Equally, network effects are huge so there's no reason to expect the best solution to a actually win. Nostr definitely has an unfair advantage over safer systems by the fact that it's shoddy design makes it easier to quickly adopt.
dids suck. they're overly complex and have a privacy model that's totally broken
it depends on people not leaking them
which of course they will and then the privacy is gone
All structured claims and certifications about a public key should be public or you shouldn't structure them
The DID privacy model isn't broken for what we're using it for: nostr is totally public.
nostr needs a simpler json claim/assertion, easily accessible in a browser app, with schnorr sigs, and a extensible set of structured claims/tags and assertions
with dids, anyone you reveal your creds to can leak provable knowledge of your identity.
it makes more sense to make a second identity if you don't want it linked to another one with claims
trusting people won't leak your information is not a security model
ty. “we’ll see” is key then, I guess.
What’s DID?
Decentralized identifier.
Part of web 5, which is like if nostr was built from the ground up by a team who thought through all the future issues & possibilities, vs nostr which is more of a quick iteration building style.
In my plebeian opinion: Nostr is just using a different form of login than a User generated ID and password combo that a given company holds an matches to your profile. However, the pubkey is stored on the relays unless they purge it and everything is encrypted unless you have the private key to unencrypt it. You can’t take that identity with you to say Twitter or your bank and say, this is who I am because I can prove it with key signatures (yet, maybe one day it will be there) and not actually share any private data.
DIDs are identities built using cryptography that you “custody” and can control who has access to it for verification/marketing/login etc. that contains private info. You can revoke access at any time since you control it and take it to anyone using that protocol, but like a govt issued ID card, it says you are who you say you are but with the added benefit of not having to reveal private info unless you want to.
Very similar but also different. NIP-05 is a step towards maybe some portable identities but don’t think it’s as flushed as what #[2] and team are attempting at TBD.
Mike/ #[3] am I sort of on track with my understanding?
Your post is generating a lot of interest.
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