The digital era came on hard and fast. I got my first real taste of it in primary school, in the early 90s. My cohort and I were assigned pen-pals (from other participating schools) and were tasked with writing them a letter on the computer. Normally we would print this letter and mail it, but this time we were going to send it electronically. That's right... electronical mail. Like a monkey sent to space, I corresponded by e-mail before its rise to dominance. And it was magical.

Fast forward a bit. I was responsible for onboarding a lot of friends and family to Gmail, back when it was still invite-only. This was also around the time that Myspace was in its death rattle and the new, cool, and clean version was launched. It was called Facebook. Other great apps included ICQ and MSN Messenger.

All was well. It was fantastically convenient to be able to jump on a computer, at home, and write my friends--until someone needed to use the phone (IYKYK). That's about as functional and layered as any of us ever needed it to be. But, as we all know, that's not how it would remain for long.

Point is, I grew up through the tech boom. I've taken it for granted. Recently, however, life smacked me around (a story for another time) and forced me to take a long, hard look at things affecting my health; including my digital hygiene.

I've realized, when it comes down to it, I could give a fuck about participating in this algorithm-driven, dopamine-maximizing, engagement-at-all-cost, advertiser-catering, user-as-product, mind-numbing, echo chamber bullshit. I don't like it. I don't like the way it makes me feel. I don't like the behavior it elicits.

I have an exponentially declining threshold for the mode by which the corporatized Internet operates. I feel that disengaging from the bulk of it is necessary to stave off any further damage it may cause, or vulnerabilities it may create. And, in doing so, distance myself from companies that clearly do not have our well-being in mind.

When it comes to earning a living, however, the Internet is a tool that simply can't be entirely discarded. I make stuff and share it, online, with those that wish to know about it. But it would seem that in a lot of instances, the cost has come to outweigh the convenience.

To curtail this, moving forward, I will favor and adopt (whenever possible) platforms and tools that are decentralized, privacy-focused, censorship-resistant, permissionless, and accessible to all--what is being touted as "freedom tech". To me, it's an echo of the Internet I was introduced to.

I am happy to finally share garden pictures with y’all again 💚

Really missed my dog and cats and all the greens 🍉🍅🥒

Love you all! 🤗 Hope you’re doing good today!!!💜🫶🫂 (fighting against weird vibes at the office!👀👀 keeping my smile, I can do this!!!!!!✨)

#grownostr 💚

The concept of value of value is one where information yearns to flow freely, transactions should be voluntary, unlimited and direct. In V4V model, people pay what something is worth to them.

Sounds great. On paper. There are some issues…

## Free sucks

At least, that’s the perception. People don’t assign much value to free. Ask anyone who has ever ran any business and has not suggested a value for a product or service and they’ll tell you that they earned far less than when charging for the thing.

It’s true, some people will give a lot, some a little, and most none. Most - none. None.

## Pricing is Signal

Pricing is a signal of desirability and quality. Of course, it is often incorrect and people manipulate pricing all the time. But for the most part, people don’t see much value in free. Unless a recommended price is offered, people will usually pay nothing. This is not a great model to thrive on if you spend years of your life acquiring knowledge and turning it into products that nobody ultimately buys.

I have very personal experience with free. I’ve created and sold digital products and ran many pricing experiments myself. The highest priced products usually generated the most revenue. Surprise! The middle cost product (same product, just priced less) decimated the revenue stream. When set to 0 (even with a suggested minimum price), I generated almost no revenue at all.

None of this is surprising. Pricing acts as a psychological anchor. “You get what you pay for” is ingrained in our brains whether we think about it or not.

## People are clueless

The issue with price is that most people don’t have a clue what anything is worth. The only time people have any rough idea of what they should pay for something is when they have already purchased that thing in the past. But, introduce something they have never before purchased and they won’t have a single clue about what to pay. Take for example a set of professional photos of you and your family. Unless you’ve been to a photo studio in the last 5 years, you probably won’t have a single clue what that package of photos is worth. Does that mean the product is worthless? Of course not, but people don’t know what to pay.

In a value for value model, the absence of price makes it super difficult to determine the value of anything. You may take some social cues from previous payments from other people, but this could backfire for the content creator.

Suppose I created a UI framework that saved developers hundreds of hours. In theory, I should be able to charge at least a few hours’ worth of value for this product. If the developer’s time is valued at $100/hour, a $200 price for a product that saves you $2000 worth of time seems very justifiable. Not only do you get to use it once, but you can re-use the product for ALL future projects and employment.

Now, remove the price and see what people pay. Absolutely nothing. You may have a few people who pay $200 voluntarily, but it’s highly unlikely The vast majority will pay nothing, and some may “tip” in the 5-$60 range. Anything that approaches a $100 mark is seen as a purchase. Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just see what other founders have figured out long ago and combine with my own observations. Don’t kill the messenger.

## Free is Expensive

If I am accurate in my assessment and recall my personal experiences accurately, then the majority of people who consume your value will do so for free. When that content is a product, you may end up spending a lot of time on supporting the thing that is not generating any revenue. You don’t want to be rude and ignore people so you’ll probably spend your valuable time answering questions and helping them troubleshoot issues. All of that time adds up. Startup founders who offer free tiers or near free tiers of services learn very quickly that free customers are the most painful and demanding. You are basically forced to charge just to avoid dealing with demanding people who expect everything for nothing.

## Free is Noise

Price is not just a request for value, but it acts as a feedback signal for future content. If you have no idea what people are paying for, it’s difficult to know if what you create is worth anything. A situation where the vast majority of your content is consumed for free yield a lot of noise.

Well, why not focus on the people who pay? You certainly could, but it ends up being a tiny fraction of the sample size you could have had if you actually charged something up front.

## Lack of forecasting

Businesses rely on predictible revenue. Forecasting is necessary for all sorts of decisions if you work with anyone but yourself. It helps with purchasing decision (expenses) and with planning of future products. Value for value makes it impossible to know what your revenue will be next month as you just have no idea if everyone pays nothing or a lot.

## V4V could make you uncompetitive

In a model where one person charges a fixed price and the other is relying on the good will of the people to "see the value" in their work, the person with predictible revenue will most likely win out in a competitive environment - enabling them to get ahead of you and your business. They will have an easier time planning further content / products and hiring people to scale the business even further.

## It’s not all hopeless

That’s not to say that I don’t like the idea of value for value. Of course I only want people to pay if they find the thing useful. The issue is that people may not know the thing is useful until they’ve already acquired it. At that point who is going back to pay for the thing they already got for free? Few to none.

Value for value may work. For some.

I’m not saying value for value doesn’t work sometimes, for some people. It is entirely possible that a person earns a living on v4v transactions. However, I think for that to be true there may be other factors at play such as social standing, personal brand, influence, likability, status within a community. The vast majority of creators do not fall into this category and will just struggle.

I’m cautiously optimistic about V4V and hope it works out at scale. But as it stands, I have not seen much evidence that it actually pays the bills. Yes, there has been some support for podcasts on Fountain, but it is unclear whether it is just as or more significant than traditional transaction model.

## “Information is not scarce” is irrelevant

There’s some notion that information yearns to be free and cannot be scarce by nature. I think this may be a false argument from the start. When we purchase digital things, we are not paying for scarcity - it’s totally irrelevant. We pay for the experience and the feeling we get from that thing. In fact, the same is probably true for physical products (with the added benefit of personal sustenance). I don’t go into the grocery store to buy a dinner and fork over the money because it’s scarce. I pay because I’m hungry. There’s utility and there’s pleasure and fulfillment. If I’m having a dinner with friends, there’s also fun. Unless I am totally misunderstanding the argument, I’m not sure how it applies.

## In Summary

* Value 4 value may work at scale, but remains to be seen

* It could be great fun money but not serious enough to pay the bills (for most of us)

* Sounds good on paper but we humans have our own ways of thinking about value and what it's worth

* May work well for people who build a personal brand or have status in a community

As always I look forward to your thoughts. Let me know if I’m overlooking something or should consider some point of view in more depth.

最近正好也在研究自架 Relay，也自己架了一個目的在於備份我想備份的內容。同時也在思考一般的使用者對於資料的掌握權在意到什麼程度，會使他們有誘因驅使使用者自架一個 Relay? 或是有其他的原因促使使用者想要自架 Relay。

截图不一样，别人知道这是来自其他地方的消息。

但是 note 被分享到其他 relay ，是一个很常见的操作，而且分享过去之后消息和一般的消息没什么区别。

just tried out. I am waitting someone to build something like this to play with the relay-selector from flycat.club. I think I talked about this idea with nostr.band author before. just glad somebody has the similar thoughts and make it happend! one question, there is moderator on the relay setting, but there is no dashboard to really modrate anything comes to the relay, is this feature not roll out yet? and it seems to me when I set default message setting to deny, it will just abort any message sent to it?

内容量是个问题，除nostr和比特币外，支撑nostr自身都有点吃力。

中心化协议可以精确关注数量，直接用没问题。nostr有kind3因为relay的通达问题，而且默认账号成本也低，直接用关注数量评价质量不高。

评关注度常见方法肯定还是按一组规则定权重加权处理，以几个指定大relay能取到的一级关注为基础，有kind0的账号权重高于无kind0，有zap高于无zap之类，包括账号自身关注度也会递归考虑权重，比如jack自身关注度高，他关注了某个新账号，即使只有他一个关注，也会带来相对更高的关注度。

有个特殊之处是nostr下需要考虑二级甚至三级级联关注的权重，只是相对弱于一级关注，这样可以补偿relay导致的一级关注偏差。

🤷‍♂️I just came up with it on the go. I assumed it being able to execute simple code makes it better than ‘dumb relay’ that only stores data. Another use case I imagine is- say someone wants their note to go viral. They can attach 5000 sats to it with a code that pays 100 sats to everyone who retweets it with a portion going to the relay that executes the code! This allows advertisers to pay users directly.

Will repeat reply here seeing as it's part of #asknostr and others may be interested

note19t66ng4w2lrfnzv80rgv709ew3fuk4flnp0ddfa2a5zzp28n93zq3esv34

nostr:note1apcm0puuds5nxrwxqtm0xk929yjmqmwqxwjrs93qs59s3j9ttt0qndqxl5

我把community 理解成群，只是它的展示形式是feed，不是最熟悉的chat形式。feed形式更适合成员大的情况。