If I run my own relay and users engage with my account, “centralized relays” shouldn’t matter? Isn’t this similar to Bitcoin where every person doesn’t need to run their own node, but they MUST have the ability/option TO run their own node? This is a serious question because I’m not sure I’ve completely wrapped my head around how relays interact with each other on Nostr…
Discussion
That's a good way of looking at it.
Bitcoin gives you a view on a shared global ledger, and you can run your own node to verify that ledger.
Nostr gives you ability to converse freely. Or to help others converse freely. Anyone can run a relay, but you dont have to run a relay.
The difference is, bitcoin is one single ledger state. Nostr is sharded into many thousands or millions of conversations, that can be independent of each other.
In the extreme case, doesn't that degrade to essentially having to connect to one extra relay per person that we follow?
Bitcoin nodes talk *to each other* and share data so that they're all ready to share that vital info with a client (i.e. your wallet app). But Nostr relays don't gossip w/each other afaik; they can only broadcast what people have directly published to them.
The only time notes get propagated out to further relays is when someone boosts it to all of their connected relays, right?