What this will end up as is a smart client with dynamic lists built from relationahip status, or static lists
A simple single follows/contact list that existing clients implemented was a mistake. Thats fine as a lazy fallback, but would be better if clients prompted/allowed to enter the following..
- A petname for that user (defaulted to their suggested display name at the time of follow)
- A set of relationship category (family, friend, coworker, vendor, church, clubmember, business associate etc)
- A set of topical categories (artist, bitcoiner, business owner, conspiracy theorist, demolitions expert, developer, gardener, swimmer, weed dealer, zebra feeder) that the user defines over time.
These could be saved as relationship status like NIP81, and even support encryption so that only you are aware of the associations.
To leverage it, the client would build dynamic lists locally and use as filters of user pubkeys when querying relays for content where the pubkeys matching your filter are authors. And this could further be filtered by individual relay if desired.
The good thing is this does not require any changes to relays and uses relays as intended. Its also compatible with existing follow lists as a fallback.
The challenge for existing clients is implementing in a way that reduces friction while promoting both adding this info during follow, and allowing updates. For a client like Amethyst or Damus, id recommend
a) a setting to toggle advanced follow mode, which when enabled does not one tap follow on button click, but prompts for the above relation data,
b) when viewing user profile, have an action/tab/button to present current relationship status
c) allow an edit mode on that same user profilw view
d) when saving, default to encrypted, but allow unencrypted for future graph discovery (of categories your WoT is aasigning to pubkeys)
e) Separately, allow defining views which take selected categories to build that filter list to retrieve from relays, with first level defaults (e.g. Friends, vs Friends and Zebra Feeders)
Ok.. by now this has droned too long. In any event, I hope major clients like the aforementioned and Coracle and Nostrudel tackle this soon as its clear that single lists arent going to work well with no context given to people.