So retarded
Yes, you make a lot of sense here 🙏🧡
Once before. Was on Thank God for Nostr last year with nostr:nprofile1qqsf03c2gsmx5ef4c9zmxvlew04gdh7u94afnknp33qvv3c94kvwxgsppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnyv9kh2uewd9hj7qgewaehxw309a5xyu3wvdhhyctrd3jjuum0vd5kzmp0gankr4.
If you're game for having a chat on my show, let me know! To continue our conversation, basically. We could invite others as well, or not.
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Makes sense, yeah. Call me a dreamer but I don't think that's the only way around, I think we can come up with better options, innovations, etc. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd love to brainstorm and thinktank with people on this issue.
I hear ya, Will, and I appreciate all your efforts here. It's just frustrating for people like me to have to just wait around until things improve enough so that more people want to use and enjoy Nostr. I encourage so many people to get on Nostr and almost all don't stick around, for all the well known reasons. I run a local Nostr meetup, I talk about Nostr all the time on my show, I stream to zap stream, and I've been here 2 years and over that time retention has not improved, and setting up a wallet is more difficult,... but anyway, I guess I'll just have to wait around. Thanks man.
nostr:npub10pensatlcfwktnvjjw2dtem38n6rvw8g6fv73h84cuacxn4c28eqyfn34f is actively supporting Nostr development. We could definitely stand to have more similar non-profits that support Nostr devs. However, grants are not a sustainable way to keep Nostr going.
The way non-Nostr apps generally make money is via advertising. Most around here want to avoid that model like the plague because, while easy to make profitable, it creates perverse incentives for developers to harvest user data and make their apps addictive to keep people doom-scrolling. I am very interested to see how nostr:npub17vscfmnmshfdw68llhduxtr4h0kkmyhzm4phzs40t3gqsmguz7lsak66ne may bring us an advertising model that bucks this trend. We'll see.
Another means of monetizing for client devs is paid subscriptions for premium features. The tough part about this one is, a lot of those "premium" features are often available for free on other clients, so you end up getting undercut by devs willing to provide the same value for free. Nevertheless, there are clients that are trying to make it work, including #Damus and #Primal.
Value-4-Value is really popular here on Nostr, so it shouldn't be surprising to see that there are devs testing out if they can support their work in this way. #Amethyst, for example, displays a donation card at the top of your Notifications each time you install a new version of the app. It also displays the profile pictures of all the folks who contributed to that version of the app. The hope is that users will choose to support the clients they use voluntarily. #Coracle does something similar, very occasionally showing an opportunity to donate to the continued development of the client in the user's main feed.
Any app, Nostr or otherwise, that is on the nostr:npub10r8xl2njyepcw2zwv3a6dyufj4e4ajx86hz6v4ehu4gnpupxxp7stjt2p8 has the opportunity to receive V4V zaps each time they release a new version of their app.
An interesting method of having ongoing passive income for your client that I have seen a couple of them implement is the option to have a percentage of your zaps go to the client dev as a zap split. Say you regularly zap 21 sats, you can have 10% go to Coracle each time you use that client to zap someone. The user you zapped still receives 21 sats, but you pay an additional 2 sats to Coracle, for a total of 23 plus Lightning fees. You can also adjust this higher if you want to give the dev more support. Obviously, this is barely anything if you aren't a prolific zapper, but it can add up quickly if you zap a lot.
A couple other client devs are building their clients with the ability to have a custom instance, such as #Ditto and #Flotilla. There is an opportunity for monetization there for offering to host that instance for those who don't want to or can't host it themselves, but still want a custom version for their community.
The same could be done by relay devs. They could offer hosting services for their relay implementations, similar to what nostr:npub10npj3gydmv40m70ehemmal6vsdyfl7tewgvz043g54p0x23y0s8qzztl5h has done with relay.tools, for those who want to have their own relay, but don't know how to set one up to host themselves, or don't want to host it on their own device for privacy reasons. They could also provide easy means of exposing a self-hosted relay to clearnet for those who don't own a domain and charge for that service.
Clients could also charge a small amount for a NIP-05 service and the ability to turn it into your Lightning address via Nostr Wallet Connect.
So yes, there are a ton of ideas for monetization out there, and many more I haven't listed, I am sure. Moreover, client devs are not sleeping on them. Many of them have implemented a means of receiving income for their work in some form or another, and some of them are using more than one. Therefore, I think it is a mischaracterization to suggest they aren't taking this challenge head on. Many most certainly are testing out various ideas to monetize their work, including simply trying to build apps that folks would be happy to pay for, or at minimum donate toward.
I appreciate your insights here, and all throughout this thread, sincerely.
I understand all the ways you described but all of them require the user to pay here and there and who knows where else. And I get that's the "price" of an awesome protocol like Nostr, but I don't think normies are even close to adopting this mindset when it comes to paying directly for various apps and services, etc. Or perhaps at this point most may never adopt that mindset because they just don't have to - they can stick with trad apps, etc.
So with the current state of monetizing Nostr I guess only hardcore believers are going to participate. And it seems most nostriches are OK with this (see Will's comment re grassroots). So people like me who want to see Nostr succeed and perform at a much higher level, or even a moderate level, have to just wait around and see what happens.
Well, I have some wilder ideas to grow Nostr but they require money andanpower that I don't have, oh well.
Cheers bro
I am not sure I entirely agree with that, but I see your point. Not everything needs to be motivated by profit to survive. A lot of devs are scratching their own itch with the things they build on Nostr, so they are happy to plug away at it in their spare time, because they get value out of what they build just as much as we do as users.
Also, profits can easily corrupt products, depending on the business model, because they can create bad incentives. I think Primal is an example of this. They clearly want to be profitable, and it has led them to make some choices in how their product works that are distinctly antithetical to the Nostr ethos.
That said, I think the clients and relay implementations that are most polished and user-friendly will likely be built by those highly motivated to be profitable. They just need to be very intentional about finding ways to make a profit that don't skew their incentives. What exactly will properly compensate devs for their work without creating bad incentives around how they iterate on what they are building? That's a really tough nut to crack.
I would love to hear your suggestions in that area, particularly around how client devs ought to monetize, and how relay implementation devs should monetize. Those who run relays can obviously charge for write and/or read access to their relay. Those who host media can do the same for their Blossom server. Heck, nostr:npub1utx00neqgqln72j22kej3ux7803c2k986henvvha4thuwfkper4s7r50e8 built Aegis specifically for that purpose. But how client and relay devs get paid for their work is a much harder problem to solve.
Makes sense. Regarding suggestions, how are other non-Nostr apps making money? Nostr apps can do that or a version of that. How about "corporate" investment from Bitcoin companies that want to or should be supporting Lightning apps, etc? How about creating apps that have a better/unique offering than traditional apps so they can charge small subscription fees? Lightning integration is already a clear differentiator. How about someone start a company like opensats to raise money for devs and apps? How about other people think of 10 more ideas each? I know this is not easy but it seems no one is taking this challenge head on.
IMO Nostr NEEDS to be approached as a business, unfortunately, with significant profit motivation, or else its just gonna be a hobby protocol that dissipates and dies soon.
A bunch of free range devs ain't gonna cut it. Nostr needs a lot more and I haven't heard anyone discussing these big issues.
Yes, good distinctions. My particular issue is that I want to talk about high level stuff, not app shortcomings, but Nostr doesn't have any practical overall coordination in terms of solving the main issues, the main one being "free" file storage, and the second one being that apps don't know how to be profitable and therefore professional.
Me too!