Great essay! Nostr is definitely the way to go for a reviews site. Probably starting with Bitcoin adjacent reviews.

I've got a piece coming soon that considers some other ways Nostr identity/WoT might be useful. It feels like these use cases are about to explode...

nostr:note1k9a7f0spdmqgacw9z9u3fehpx6aymye0g2ja44zpzzfvykwelarqv4drqc

It's a very good point. Those billions of reviews globally, if you exclude fakes and then divide by the numbers of products out there you get maybe 100 reviews per popular product (median number of reviews for all products is definitely zero). How many of those 100 reviews would be in my wot circle? If the 100 people I follow posted 100 reviews each, I would only be considering maybe 0.01% of all popular products. That doesn't seem good.

The solution could be a wider wot circle, and start from niche, and more reviews. If I knew my reviews wouldn't be lost in some corporate database, I might have posted more of them.

Also it will probably vary based on physical proximity to my contract list members. They would probably review a lot of local products, but not much in Dubai or on Alibaba. So maybe travel is not the best place to start.

You have a source for your review data ? Seems wildly outrageous numbers. Maybe im wrong but i doubt many consumers who buy items like Supreme or Palace ever needed a review… Reviews are definitely valuable but why couldnt i just create a fake acct and pump my own products the same way ? Nostr fixes that because of how exactly ?

The problem is that for an informed opinion, your social graph should at least rate a few of these things and assuming Dunbar's Number as the number of relevant follows you might reasonably have, if you reduce that by shared interests you quickly fail to find any relevant opinions. What are the chances that any of them has been to that other country, to that other town and visited any of those 10% of still available hotel rooms you can find for your travel dates? Or even more generic items like headphones ... how many of them have tested headphones that are still on the market in your town ... and taken the time to write reviews?

Google has the social graph and uses it on the few occasions there is a match but it's few and far between.

Logged into Facebook today...

Me: [goes to Facebook]

Me: [enters email & password]

Facebook: "Confirm you are human"

Me: [identifies stoplights]

Facebook: "We sent a code to your gmail account"

Me: [goes to gmail]

Me: [enters email & password]

Gmail: "Confirm you are human"

Me: [identifies bridges]

Gmail: "We sent a code to your recovery email"

Me: [opens new gmail tab]

Me: [enters recovery email and password]

Gmail: "Confirm you are human"

Me: [identifies more stoplights]

Gmail: "Would you like to setup a recovery email?"

Me: "No"

Gmail: "Would you like to give us more personal information and your phone number?"

Me: "No"

Gmail: "Can we put cookies that track your entire web experience in your browser for your 'security' and 'convenience'?"

Me: "No"

Gmail: "Welcome to your email!"

Me: [finds security code for other gmail]

Me: [enters security code for other email login]

Gmail: "Would you like to give us more personal information and your phone number?"

Me: "No"

Gmail: "Can we put cookies that track your entire web experience in your browser for your 'security' and 'convenience'?"

Me: "No"

Gmail: "Welcome to your email!"

Me: [finds security code for facebook]

Me: [enters security code for facebook]

Facebook: "Would you like to give us more personal information and your phone number?"

Me: "No"

Facebook: "If you let us install this thing you'll conveniently be logged in every time you return to our website!"

Me: "No"

Facebook: "Welcome to Facebook! Also there's a much better experience if you let us install this thing and you'll conveniently be logged in every time you return to our website! Have you changed your mind from 6 seconds ago?"

Me: "No."

...

This is not an exaggeration. The internet is broken.

“You’ve got to stop eating the interns”

Right. Bitcoin Times deserves the white for higher contrast.

The vector artwork on the back looks a little rough tho. I'd invest more time in refining those.

The composition could also be more interesting.