It’s definitely not controlling my life. But I don’t want to be dragged into pointless debates because of a connotation I’m not aware of.
It’s interesting how consistently cultures rise to empire and then attribute success to genetics. When what it really is, more than anything, is an alignment of cultural practices and values with a technological environment at a particular moment in history.
The quest of historians and philosophers is to find that set of values and practices that are immune to the changes in technology and environment over time.
Does anyone know the backstory on "vril" as a term?
I love the idea of a punchy, novel word to indicate vitality of spirit. The opposite of "I feel so dead inside". The anti-zombie juice.
But it seems to have "master race" connotations, which I abhor.
What's the cultural disambiguation here?
This is absolutely delightful.
This post walks through it
https://primal.net/e/note1xtrkffqpysezkhkx8kvdzn30yqdrempj0s7ta6f3mtgeajznx36ssgddpg
doesn't mean it ISN'T practically useful. #typo #ugh
PART 2
Well I've spent the better part of an hour pouring over the nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm website and you all have done a damn fine job. It's an incredibly difficult task to explain lightning, nostr, and v4v dynamics on a marketing website.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm still struggling to understand what Alby is, just a little bit. Probably because it can be so many things to so many people.
But from my point of view, I think of it like a wireless key fob for my car. Cars used to require keys... to unlock them, to lock them, to start them. You had to always be fiddling with them, turning them, jiggling them in the lock.
But wireless key fobs come along and just turn it into a smooth experience that, for a while, feels like magic. The car can literally sense when you're there and unlock for you, turn on with the switch of a button. Turn off if you walk away too far.
It just removes a ton of mechanical friction from the experience.
Alby does this for nostr, and for lightning, and by extension, the v4v ecosystem. So, like, that's pretty brilliant you all should take a fucking bow, because you're killing it.
To stretch that analogy beyond rational limits, you might think of your nostr account as the car, the nostr network as the highway, bitcoin as the gas, and alby as your wireless key fob... if key fobs also paid for gas, I guess.
Anyhoo...
If someone asked me (and to be clear, no one has asked me) to tweak the UX a bit so that it fit better into the bento box of a beginner's mind (see above post) here's probably how I'd frame it.
Make it a two-step process:
1) create your account
2) install the browser extension
Right now they seem positioned as two separate solutions or products. And maybe they are? I don't know, can I use the extension if I don't have an account? Can I use my account without the extension?
Anyway, the dominant UX pattern for all SaaS products is the first thing you do is create an account. Everything else flows from there.
This implies that there is one "back-end" for my user and account data and settings, and that the extension sits atop this information, or is another lens through which I can view and manage.
(Important caveat: it's possibly I am gravely misunderstanding Alby still)
Right now my confusion was that there was an extension, with its own account settings, which mostly helped me send and receive bitcoin seamlessly via other apps. And then there's the account, which does the nostr verification and key management for logging into accounts.
I think what threw me is how you're managing the HTML page for the extension. When I click on the extension I get that rather large pop-out window showing my transactions (and other stuff). But if I go the menu in that window and click "settings" then a full on browser window loads.
Now when that happened I assumed I'd "left the extension" and gone "to the main site". But, much later, when I looked closer I realized that it's just the HTML page for the extension. But since the ar has changed so much in the browser it looked very different.
So my initial, gut reaction is to just have one page/interface where you change the settings to your account (which presumably flow through to the extension) and open THAT page rather than loading the HTML extension page.
On the other hand, if there are actually two different sets of settings (one for account, one for extension) then my recommendation would be to clearly indicate on each page which is which. So label the extension settings page "Extension settings" and maybe put a small link right under that which says "change your account settings here" or something. And maybe even have a tool tip next to that label that explains there are two different classes of settings to help the user grok it.
Anyway, my 2 cents. As before, I'm very impressed by your product and look forward to years of frictionless sending of sats to where they are most deserved.
Now it's possible there's an excellent reason for doing this. And that
Whoops. Ignore that last stub of a sentence. It's creative detritus. But since it's nostr it's gonna be there foreva.
Okay nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm i'm going to try this in two parts. First I'm going to try and walk through my UX when I first encountered Alby. I'll lay out the JTBD I was trying to accomplish and map out my mental state.
Then I will actually RESEARCH Alby and try to better understand what you do. Then filter that back through a suggested UX (or some changes) that might better support the beginners experience.
Obviously this is just me. I'm just a humble minstrel. Not necessarily representative of a specific wider community. Mileage may vary. Yadda yadda.
PART 1: The Minstrel Tries Out Alby
So I joined nostr maybe 6 months ago? it was before the nostr conference in the Caribbean. Anyway, I read up about nostr. Seemed exciting and cypherpunk af. Just what social media needed. I was in.
Somehow I created my account using Damus maybe?
Then discovered that your nostr keys are similar to your bitcoin keys... never enter them directly anywhere.
Found out about the nos2x extension. Loaded it. Started using it. Felt much safer. But it was really basic and felt kind a clunky. I often had to copy and paste the public key. (1st world problems)
Then people started verifying their identity. Somehow they were getting an email address with their handle @nostr.plebs or something. This was mysterious and confusing to figure out and I didn't have time at all.
And of course I was zapping, which was awesome. But could only do this on mobile, as that's where my lightning wallets lived. Plus I didn't like having to tap like 7 times to complete the zap process (zap, select wallet, select amount, add message, send zap, close window, close another window, now up a level, do the hokey pokey, turn yourself around...)
So at this point I had three vague friction points with my nostr experience: nostr key extension, verifying identity, and smooth zapping.
I honestly don't remember how I found alby. I'm sure it was some post in nostr about how cool it was, new shiny thing, smart and handsome dev team, etc.
But I remember what caught my eye is it seemed like an easier way to verify my nostr identity. Seemed like a sleek UX, and I didn't have to ask some other nostr user to "add me to the list and I'll get the email address" or something, which is how it seemed to work at the time with the other service.
Then I remember the UX looking really great. It felt professional. Which is I guess what I needed at the time, since I was just too busy to be the intrepid early adopter.
As I was going through the verification process (i.e. signing up with alby) I discovered it apparently solved these other problems too, with the public key sign in AND was a client-agnostic lightning wallet with a smooth UX.
At that point it seemed like a reliable 1-stop-shop for a lot of nostr/lightning stuff I wanted an easier way to do.
It's a little fuzzy, but I recall going straight to installing the browser extension and only interacting with Alby through there. it's a pretty large pop-out window that's almost the size of a mobile interface. So it seemed to me like "that's all there is to alby".
And it's mostly worked for me that way this entire time. I remember a couple times looking at the menu and noticing there's some other features that I'm not taking advantage of. But my nostr exprience got noticably smoother after installing it, and I had other priorities than becoming an Alby power user. So I just coasted.
Until this morning (yesterday?) when another #nostrich told me my verification is actually not verified. so down the rabbit hole I go and here I am now writing a fucking novel of a UX narrative, which I hope is at least mildly helpful.
Now I'm going to go do some formal research on Alby and will write up PART 2 later tonight. I'll tag you but will post it as a reply to this note.
Cheers!
PART 2
Well I've spent the better part of an hour pouring over the nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm website and you all have done a damn fine job. It's an incredibly difficult task to explain lightning, nostr, and v4v dynamics on a marketing website.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm still struggling to understand what Alby is, just a little bit. Probably because it can be so many things to so many people.
But from my point of view, I think of it like a wireless key fob for my car. Cars used to require keys... to unlock them, to lock them, to start them. You had to always be fiddling with them, turning them, jiggling them in the lock.
But wireless key fobs come along and just turn it into a smooth experience that, for a while, feels like magic. The car can literally sense when you're there and unlock for you, turn on with the switch of a button. Turn off if you walk away too far.
It just removes a ton of mechanical friction from the experience.
Alby does this for nostr, and for lightning, and by extension, the v4v ecosystem. So, like, that's pretty brilliant you all should take a fucking bow, because you're killing it.
To stretch that analogy beyond rational limits, you might think of your nostr account as the car, the nostr network as the highway, bitcoin as the gas, and alby as your wireless key fob... if key fobs also paid for gas, I guess.
Anyhoo...
If someone asked me (and to be clear, no one has asked me) to tweak the UX a bit so that it fit better into the bento box of a beginner's mind (see above post) here's probably how I'd frame it.
Make it a two-step process:
1) create your account
2) install the browser extension
Right now they seem positioned as two separate solutions or products. And maybe they are? I don't know, can I use the extension if I don't have an account? Can I use my account without the extension?
Anyway, the dominant UX pattern for all SaaS products is the first thing you do is create an account. Everything else flows from there.
This implies that there is one "back-end" for my user and account data and settings, and that the extension sits atop this information, or is another lens through which I can view and manage.
(Important caveat: it's possibly I am gravely misunderstanding Alby still)
Right now my confusion was that there was an extension, with its own account settings, which mostly helped me send and receive bitcoin seamlessly via other apps. And then there's the account, which does the nostr verification and key management for logging into accounts.
I think what threw me is how you're managing the HTML page for the extension. When I click on the extension I get that rather large pop-out window showing my transactions (and other stuff). But if I go the menu in that window and click "settings" then a full on browser window loads.
Now when that happened I assumed I'd "left the extension" and gone "to the main site". But, much later, when I looked closer I realized that it's just the HTML page for the extension. But since the ar has changed so much in the browser it looked very different.
So my initial, gut reaction is to just have one page/interface where you change the settings to your account (which presumably flow through to the extension) and open THAT page rather than loading the HTML extension page.
On the other hand, if there are actually two different sets of settings (one for account, one for extension) then my recommendation would be to clearly indicate on each page which is which. So label the extension settings page "Extension settings" and maybe put a small link right under that which says "change your account settings here" or something. And maybe even have a tool tip next to that label that explains there are two different classes of settings to help the user grok it.
Anyway, my 2 cents. As before, I'm very impressed by your product and look forward to years of frictionless sending of sats to where they are most deserved.
Now it's possible there's an excellent reason for doing this. And that
Okay nostr:npub1getal6ykt05fsz5nqu4uld09nfj3y3qxmv8crys4aeut53unfvlqr80nfm i'm going to try this in two parts. First I'm going to try and walk through my UX when I first encountered Alby. I'll lay out the JTBD I was trying to accomplish and map out my mental state.
Then I will actually RESEARCH Alby and try to better understand what you do. Then filter that back through a suggested UX (or some changes) that might better support the beginners experience.
Obviously this is just me. I'm just a humble minstrel. Not necessarily representative of a specific wider community. Mileage may vary. Yadda yadda.
PART 1: The Minstrel Tries Out Alby
So I joined nostr maybe 6 months ago? it was before the nostr conference in the Caribbean. Anyway, I read up about nostr. Seemed exciting and cypherpunk af. Just what social media needed. I was in.
Somehow I created my account using Damus maybe?
Then discovered that your nostr keys are similar to your bitcoin keys... never enter them directly anywhere.
Found out about the nos2x extension. Loaded it. Started using it. Felt much safer. But it was really basic and felt kind a clunky. I often had to copy and paste the public key. (1st world problems)
Then people started verifying their identity. Somehow they were getting an email address with their handle @nostr.plebs or something. This was mysterious and confusing to figure out and I didn't have time at all.
And of course I was zapping, which was awesome. But could only do this on mobile, as that's where my lightning wallets lived. Plus I didn't like having to tap like 7 times to complete the zap process (zap, select wallet, select amount, add message, send zap, close window, close another window, now up a level, do the hokey pokey, turn yourself around...)
So at this point I had three vague friction points with my nostr experience: nostr key extension, verifying identity, and smooth zapping.
I honestly don't remember how I found alby. I'm sure it was some post in nostr about how cool it was, new shiny thing, smart and handsome dev team, etc.
But I remember what caught my eye is it seemed like an easier way to verify my nostr identity. Seemed like a sleek UX, and I didn't have to ask some other nostr user to "add me to the list and I'll get the email address" or something, which is how it seemed to work at the time with the other service.
Then I remember the UX looking really great. It felt professional. Which is I guess what I needed at the time, since I was just too busy to be the intrepid early adopter.
As I was going through the verification process (i.e. signing up with alby) I discovered it apparently solved these other problems too, with the public key sign in AND was a client-agnostic lightning wallet with a smooth UX.
At that point it seemed like a reliable 1-stop-shop for a lot of nostr/lightning stuff I wanted an easier way to do.
It's a little fuzzy, but I recall going straight to installing the browser extension and only interacting with Alby through there. it's a pretty large pop-out window that's almost the size of a mobile interface. So it seemed to me like "that's all there is to alby".
And it's mostly worked for me that way this entire time. I remember a couple times looking at the menu and noticing there's some other features that I'm not taking advantage of. But my nostr exprience got noticably smoother after installing it, and I had other priorities than becoming an Alby power user. So I just coasted.
Until this morning (yesterday?) when another #nostrich told me my verification is actually not verified. so down the rabbit hole I go and here I am now writing a fucking novel of a UX narrative, which I hope is at least mildly helpful.
Now I'm going to go do some formal research on Alby and will write up PART 2 later tonight. I'll tag you but will post it as a reply to this note.
Cheers!
Excellent question. I will think on it today and try post my thoughts tonight.
Years later and this still impressed me and fires my imagination.
To normies this must seem like science fiction: an energy-based currency ledger broadcast from space for the benefit of all mankind. nostr:note1xl6xvzxednjjm0cfdsfn4zt4wst8eqys5336x24c4tcueu4l7x6s5wtv4k
It's incredible how hard I will work, sometimes, to not do the thing I know I must do.
"Xitter" is perfect because in the Yucatan it's probably pronounced "shitter"
nostr:note1uktna6za46lm9vc57n2y0drggfa0pgj3xgr5nqpnsnh5jafu02qskxnq94
This is why protests and political activism is encouraged by the state. It is still just an appeal to authority. It retains the frame of those in power.
What the state hates is people just solving their own problems without the state. As that represents a true challenge to state authority. It exposes the state as unnecessary within a specific domain.
The food system is a great example of this.
Little known secret exclusive to Yamaha pianos: there is a number printed on the top of the action in upright pianos. The first two numbers represent the year of manufacture. For example: this piano is from 1986. https://nostr.build/av/3a440038b07ed1f8f0acc7ce7c76e3d4d3e9c569622c7b9ef1c04ebfb1cf1af3.mov
Oh wow! Will have to check my upright. There’s a debate about how old it is. Thanks!
Great framing.
And the great challenge of science is that there is no “view from nowhere” so it’s always fighting against our inescapable first person-ness.
💯🎯
Was pondering this very thing this morning.
https://damus.io/note1kql5ntv4w9ja2h8krszu64dqe0gn4rjj449sf0wtw0g9ylfqqjds2azfuf
🤣
I’m not laughing AT you.
I’m laughing WITH you.
Okay, question... if I "report user", to whom am I reporting, exactly?
#nostr is decentralized. Is this just sending an alert/flag to relays, and the relay operators can do as they wish?
Which leads me to the next observation that relays will likely become a sort of subscription based filter to which users can subscribe.
Tired of pr0n on nostr? There's a relay for that.
Had enough of conspiracy theories? There's a relay for that.
Interested in Muslim-only values? There's a relay for that.
nostr is a bastion of free speech and very important safety valve for future society.
But people inherently nest. They curate their environments to meet their goals and satisfy their psychological needs.
nostr will be no different. And relays seem the likely vector for this to happen.
I'm surely not the first to think of this. What's the current status of this idea?