What's preventing you from "purple pilling" your friends and family? What do Nostr clients need to do to make it easier for the masses to see why decentralization and censorship resistant communication is better?
Discussion
ironically, a larger network
Agree. The network affect of larger platforms is important for many.
A nostr key that's stored via faceID or other biometrics so users can just download the app and not worry about the npub/nsec strings.
This is an underrated point. Key management for normies is a big deterrent
Yes. Having to surrender your nsec is not ideal.
I agree. Key management does need to be so incredibly easy and simple that people don't even know that they're managing keys.
Bitcoin price needs to go to 70k usd.
Then when people ask how they can learn about #bitcoin tell them to go to NOSTR.
When they say "what's that?" laugh like they are retarded.
I wonder how Bitcoin could move back up to levels like this? I don't know if just using BTC to do transactions will move it. I think you have to have more new people to get in there and buy it. Supply / demand vs people who're already involved utilizing it as a means of exchange
Demand growing steadily as all sorts of use cases and network effects have grown.
Supply dropping by 50% in 12 months.
Over the next year any math oriented people who like to look at historical Sharpe ratios of varyying time periods will be attracted like flies. The November 2022 FTX low was fundamentally great reason to start bitcoin bull.
Reduction of fake bitcoin is not too hard to understand, even for normies.
tbh, most people (normies) don’t know it exists so there’s an immediate barrier to entry
Been using the upcoming trip to CR to explain it to coworkers and usually lose them when there’s not a single common app to use like the centralized social media apps
Add npub/nsec and most normies run for the hills
For most normies it’s not about the tech it’s about the content. Even for me, I am very much missing the sports content this week. Tbh March madness & NFL free agency has me missing twitter right now.
Critical mass of normitude:
- Marketplaces for buying/selling local stuff
- Easy places for moms to communicate
- Safe, private ways to share pictures of kids, vacations, etc
- Other people who they want to interact with
Key management needs to be secure and abstracted away.
I've been close to pasting and posting my private key several times.
Agree. But if you use the same browser you can set it up to remember your private key.
Yea I know that. My point is it's a steep learning curve with all the steps and components needed to set up/verify/relays/clients/key safety. It's too cumbersome for most normies.
One thing is mobile data usage. But in the end, most normies accept that they have no privacy and make no effort to change. Easiest example is Signal over Whatsapp.
There would need to be content on here other than just meta-Nostr discussion and Bitcoin. They aren't interested in those topics and they have already reached the view that social media is pathological. They are interacting with the internet in a deliberate way, searching for what interests them rather than grazing through vast information that "might" be interesting.
They use Facebook
Same. I doubt I'd ever get my family and close friends to use Nostr. They use social platforms much differently than we do.
In the same boat overhere, however, I believe in the saying …
“ whatever floats your boat “
So when the boats start sinking, that is whenever Nostr will shine !!!
And all my family will rush to Nostr.
🫂💜🤙🏼
Smooth media upload integration
A lot of current users are tech leaning so much of the setup/privacy awareness is there already and/or is accepted.
Setting wallets up, creation/mgt of keys, how to connect with those with similar interests are all the larger issues.
Honestly I think many are really used to algo driven feeds so it’d be a speed bump to get used to a calmer experience.
Easy on ramp. Which might mean hiding within the client a LN wallet private and public Nostr codes. With the ability to secure them later.
#[4] is a client with a built in wallet. It's still early days, but I'm hopeful a client such as theirs will be a great solution for many new users that just want their tech to work seamlessly.
Social Capital is a real thing.
So not waste your social capital trying to convince a normie to use NOSTR. Not trying to be mean. Just dead serious. You are better off shoveling snow and cooking briskset for your neighbor and only talk about nostr if they ask about all the problems coming from censorship on centralized social media.
You had me at cooking brisket.
I mean it is possible to purple pill other bitcoiners. I still know some bitcoiners on twitter and I was purple pilled by Stephen Chow. Would not have tried nostr as quickly without his input. so still plenty to do on that front. As bitcoiner I just wanted reasonable # of dank memes and the standard bitcoin hopium, access to bitcoin famous people.
all those still improving
there are a lot good points about how to make nostr client more user-friendly
but for the OP question “how to show ppl why decentralisation is cool” – i guess your answer is the most relevant 🤔
1. Easily add Gifs and pics
2. Spaces and groups in one app like Twitter and Telegram
Non bitcoin content and users. I like nostr a lot but I don't think its a strech to say its a bitcoin circle jerk here.
Im personaly happy with my feed especialy after piping my rss into nostr but if a non-bitcoiner joins they are gonna want to see "normie" news and other content.
True. I'm happy with my RSS feeds too, but this extra bit of work isn't for everyone.
Im actualy going the extra step to set up my own rsslay that pipes to my relay becasue I find the .moe site posts to slow and my rss gets lost. But thats besides the point.
Ill also second most of the people saying that relays can be confusing. I picked itmup fast but im a sysadmin whos comfortable tinkering with new / buggy tech.
Most people "just want it to work" and dont give a shit *how* it works. I dont know if this is an issue we can solve with ui or not.
Id like to say its an education problem but then we get ye ol' "lead a horse to water" problem. People are not motivated to learn unless there is direct impact on them. Like shit Bitcoin has loads of great ways to learn about what it is and why people like it but ive never "oranged pilled" someone unless they already had libertarian leanings or they where directly impacted by banks.
I think part of it is the “discovery” element. People got so trained on “For You” pages and “suggested” content that took the work out of finding new things.
Integrated gifs and image upload is a biggie for helping people feel comfortable here. That, plus just smoothing some of the edges in the UX/UI of the most popular clients.
Honestly, though, I think the average person doesn’t give a shit about decentralization or censorship resistance. Their eyes will just glaze over. Sell them on the zaps, the potential, the vibe, and the lack of an algorithm that manipulates them.
Agree. People don't care about those things until they need it. Until a reason for needing it happens to them.
People who have never been shadow banned or overtly banned will not understand or appreciate the value of censorship resistance.
Before I deleted FB a couple years ago, I had been repeatedly banned for selling gun parts and ammo on their marketplace.
My lowly Twitter account was shadow banned until I bought Elon's verification status.
None of that shit will ever happen to me on Nostr.
Unless service providers fail.
That's why I run my own public relay.
I meant the internet itself.
Telecoms companies have a financial incentive to maintain their networks even in the worst of times.
There is a risk of governments attacking the free and open internet. See: great firewall of China.
But even the Chinese people have access to things like TOR.
The underlying infrastructure that this all runs on is quite resilient.
Relays are confusing
Image and media handling not as simple as it should be
People have zero interest in public/private keys and such
Don't know about other people, but my experience is extremely slow and choppy
All these do not deter ME from using Nostr, but there's no way any of my friends and family could cope.
While relays on Nostr are extremely important, I agree, clients have a lot to do on this front. Most users don't want to manage relays. It's too confusing and time consuming. They just want their social platform to work. Some clients are taking this into consideration and managing relays for users.
Like myself. It's the part I just don't get. Should I not have as many relays as possible? If that's the case, why do I have to add them one by one and "manage" them?
Relays management is a bitch 😂 One would think that more is better, right? That means you can reach more people. However, with more relays, that's more servers that your client needs to send and receive data from on every single event. It can create a lot of lag and use a lot of data.
Is that the same when using a blastr relay?
Blastr solves this issue!
Thanks!
Sort of you have to trust blastr to actually send your events and not censor. Though it's open source so if more people run blasters it's less of an issue.
I've actually been thinking about running a blastr for myself as a way to make sure my events are broadcasted to every relay. I also think that we should have many blastr relays across the protocol. I only know of two right now? More could exist?
The other issue with it is if I see your note on a relay you've blased to but are not reading from and comment on that relay you'll never see it. So clients will have to get smarter about figuring out what relays people are writing to and reading from. Gossip does some work around this
Seems like having a lot of write relays wouldn’t have nearly the same downsides as having a lot of read relays though?
Id suggest a profile setup walkthrough when you download the client. It would include prompts and explanations allowing the user to easily upload a profile pic (Nostr.build, resized, etc somehow in the background?), relays (what are they and how to find them in app), key management (currently my dad would struggle to write it out in his hard copy password book), NIP, etc.
First experience and ease of setup are so important!
Surprisingly, the encrypted key pairs have been a barrier to entry for some people I’ve talked to.
Fully agree. Easier key management is paramount for future growth.
Its going to need more work on making it easier for that sort of take up.
is harder to get a notion of whats going on around if there is only bitcoin alpha signal
You're not wrong. I miss out on other news when not using Twitter. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad. I guess it depends on the news and what I want to consume. Nostr doesn't have the network affect yet.
the algos can be trained to show you more of whats of interest, i learned that a while ago and use it often to be “up to date” ; yet algorithm-less feels so much better, its a bit niche many don’t/can’t appreciate ; the adventurous folks that jumped in nostr came with curiosity and learned about this other developments in the bitcoin network, u know the current edge in computer sciences….
The idea of the cryptographic key/value pairs and multiple relays. They feel like it’s too much to manage.
“La costumbre es más fuerte que el amor” -> He says a song.
But the reality is that few people like to learn new things, change generates fear.
Teaching calmly and patiently will achieve something.
i tried to comment but looks like i failed
#[0]
Preguntas cruciales Y esto creo:
“La costumbre es más fuerte que el amor” Dice una canción.
Pero la realidad es que a pocas personas les gusta aprender cosas nuevas, el cambio genera miedo.
La enseñanza con calma y paciencia espero lograre algo.
#[0]
All the clients are twitter-like, and most people i know don’t really care about twitter. Only way to onboard them would be to have something more like facebook/insta
#[4] how about nostrgram?
And also habla.news
And a new one I found was blogstack.io, that one was really interesting for long form.
What i mean is they mostly use social media to keep in touch with friends and family. Everything here is too public for a lot of people
Fair point. Maybe following less people on more private/intimate relays and a more picture based client with upload capabilities would cater to that crowd…
Agree. We use social platforms much differently than they do.
It's a fair point. Nostr (as of now) doesn't have a good way to keep conversations private or allow certain individuals to see your posts but nobody else. I can understand why that's a draw for platforms like Facebook (as much as I loathe Facebook). #[2]
people like us have nothing to hide
It's not an issue of having something to hide. Just because you have nothing to hide doesn't mean everyone has the right to see everything you're doing and saying and thinking and buying etc. Some thoughts and conversations are private and should remain so. Of course, they're not *really* private on platforms like Facebook, but people think they are -- thus the draw.
the future is now
you gotta get me zapped 😀 a good story for fam to begin with
I only use it for bitcoin related discussion.
And only know 1 person in real life who is interested in bitcoin enough to download nostr.
To me it’s not abt nostr needing to improve, it’s abt ppl not understanding btc
I only have one local friend that owns Bitcoin, but he's also a Shitcoiner and loves Rug Pal. He's one of my best friends though. 🤙🧡💜
Non bitcoin/nostr-dev content
Could maybe be bootstrapped with good account switching UX as bitcoiners have other interests as well. Normalize and make it easy to have multiple accounts for different interests.
Better search and suggestions for people to get past the spam and bitcoiner content.
Most of my friends and fam have never been shadowbanned so they're less apt to see the value in a censorship resistant protocol.
A clone of Instagram and Tiktok
A simple short explanation, preferably not longer than a sentence.
The same goes with #Bitcoin. I spend a lot of time thinking about the best and simplest orange pilling strategy.
Your post is making waves.
Added to the https://member.cash/hot feed
Asked this week a dev that was developing one of the first alt Twitter apps at the time and is very tech savvy. His response was that the btc maxi talk was the turn-off at this point.
All the keys, relays and the overall learning curve with specific lingo: pv, zaps etc. take effort to get used to and not many have the time and interest for it.
"Alternative for X" is not good enough. Mastodon got a lot of new users last year but not many have stayed active. What can we learn from that experience?
I think nostr will mostly be for those interested in bitcoin and related tech for some time. But that’s ok because I expect this segment of the population to also grow.
Also nostr still doesn't work very well. Notifications and posts simply disappearing for me far too often.
honestly.. incentives.. 🤷🏽♀️
i only **really** talked to one IRL friend about nostr (journalist, mainly using tiktok and insta) after she got locked out of her tiktok.. she doesn't yet get it completely and also it only happened to her once so not rly that incentivised yet..
waiting on @maxdemarco's doc to share that w her 😊..
further, if I put myself in the shoes of other friends/fam..
either they run their business on them (use the ads/algo models and/or have their client base/audience there..)
or they have an intensive offline job and no incentive/interest to look into other social media.. are fine w insta/WhatsApp for socials.. use it rarely anyways..
They don't really care that much about decentralization and censorship. What they care about is better features and benefits.
It's akin to TESLA making a better car than other manufacturers and people buying it because it's better, not because they care about the environment.
Identification/Nsec security seems like a big issue for me to make people feel safe using Nostr.
Second issue, we need to have more than Bitcoin discussions and groups of interests.
Yep that’s why I try to recommend people to go on Nostr.band and search for topics to find people and relays!
There is lack of content for normies here in Nostr. All we talk about is bitcoin and Nostr.
We just need some varied content, which will build organically over time. Any Jazz relays?