They can keep their algorithms
Algorithms are awful UX
* ppl's focal interest changes from moment to moment
* literally no one wants to be thinking or worrying about how to appease the algorithm when interacting
Good search beats algorithmic feeds
I see more and more ppl on X using lists & their follows feed
Those ppl are preferring stoneage technology over 48M parameter neural nets
Nostr is right now the best social network for political dissidents
Self-sovereignty fundamentally changed my conception of freedom from something that is granted to something that is held in your own hands of your own volition
And that something is made possible by technology
Amazing
Is it just bizarre coincidence that radically decentralized and radically centralized visions of the future emerged at almost the same time
The first commit in https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr/commits/master appeared on Dec 30, 2021
Elon Musk purchased Twitter on Oct 27, 2022
I like Elon very much on a personal level and I agree with nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx that centralized corporate tech presents a huge danger to freedom
Elon frequently cites Iain M. Banks sci-fi novels on a space-faring civilization called The Culture
Planets in The Culture universe are run by benign but hugely powerful AI entities
In effect they act as on-demand personal assistants via a carried / worn device, only intervening to prevent serious accidents / injury
In those planets there is no resource scarcity, no wars and no social dysfunction. In real life there is often a tradeoff between peace and freedom.
X is developing AI, maybe one day X will be run by AI
One interesting fact is that governments are playing a secondary role in this competition between decentralized and centralized solutions
It shows that technology has already significantly limited the power/relevance of government
Governments will insert themselves into both sides as they don't like that at all :)
All of this
I really like the walk before we run focus on getting basic UX nailed down
No speculation, just things we know ppl want
Fwiw algorithms give really really bad UX
Literally no one wants to be worrying about appeasing the algorithm overlord
Tbf I dabbled briefly in Bitcoin because I'm into tech and the feeling of value being held in a string of digits scrawled on a piece of paper was something weird and incredible
But the concept of self sovereignty didn't even register let alone click
Nostr made it click & now I appreciate Bitcoin much more
"Something to do, something to love and something to hope for"
Good morning ☕☀️
#nostr already has content
The content is that ppl form meaningful relationships
They can do that because they have freedom and self-sovereignty
We joke about muting gm and gn
But the gms and gns say a lot
Nostr can be anything to anyone
Building half-assed imitations of X is allowed
Building build full-assed clones of X is allowed
Building something even X-ier than X is allowed
But the world already has an X
"If you like your centralized algorithm rage driven feed you can keep your centralized algorithm driven rage feed"
Ppl left X because they wanted something else
And they built something that has a different culture
The culture is partly a reflection of their reasons for leaving and partly a reflection of the technology
Nostr grows organically by word of mouth
We need patience and it needs to be sustainable
Zapping is easy
nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft and others made subscriptions easy
The culture of nostr is different so onboarding needs to help with that transition
Finding ppl and topics on nostr is by active search
On X it's passive by algorthmic feeds
The search on X is awful
So ppl don't use it
Let's build awesome search on nostr
And encourage ppl to use it
In the long long run it may* turn out that the majority of ppl prefer centralized algorithm driven social media
As long as there's a place for ppl who don't want that, I'm fine with that too
* I don't think it's the most likely outcome
