Maybe I've not kicked the tires enough, but I feel a lot of nostr's potential is sidelined by the fact that it's just far too free-of-charge.

Everything is free here, if you want it for free. There is some donation income and embryonic business models that I can see, but surely they cover only a tiny fraction of the wider costs. And clearly there's so much other money floating around that this shortfall isn't noticed.

I think the cardinal sin of the internet is to subsidise things at the start and then "find a way" to get them to stand on their own two financial feet later. This never works and that is a lesson that the internet has learned over and over.

You have to force everyone to pay to take part, you have to force the user base to cover its costs alone. This is the only honest business model there can be for social.

Even if just a little bit, you have to force everyone.

My thoughts on Nostr so far.

It's far too free.

There are bills to pay, and the users are not paying them.

There is ample money flowing around, and most is not from the users.

This never works. It's a lesson that the internet has learned over and over again, if users are not covering the cost of their usage, either by being forced to pay (best way), or from donations, then they are the product.

Nostr is going to be a case of this lesson learned once more.

I had a look, it's well done, and they are thinking about money from the start, not forced by close to it, even if just a small amount. Very impressive. Years ahead of White Noise I think

no my thinking is worthy projects will force users to pay. what makes them worthy is that kind of financial honesty.

Please don't make this one of those things where the costs to support the underlying infra become something that "we'll figure out later".

That all gets paid for with taxes, as you mention. You pay taxes for your parks, and if you travel to another country it's quid pro quo, each side pays for their own, each side visits (hence how tourist visa systems generally work), and of course VAT is paid wherever.

Point is, there is no national social media tax collector. There is no government funding nostr, no city council funding nostr clients based in their city.

So the costs have to come from our pockets, the users! Right now all this money is coming from somewhere not the users, and not an entity that has collected some form of tax from the users to disburse it around.

So that's not right. It's never right. This is a lesson the internet keeps learning over and over. Let's make it free to start. Oops that was a bad idea. Let's make it free to start. Oops that was a bad idea. ... One day we have to break the cycle.

I don't agree, I think people have been conditioned to think stuff is free when it isn't in practical reality.

Linux is free, but VMs running Linux are not free. (What's linux without a machine to run it on?)

Internet resources are free in a sense, but the sites that host and propagate them, like say Github, have many bills to pay.

When you chat with someone using Signal you're using an app that runs up an AWS bill of millions of dollars each month. And those routers your message hopped across, someone manufactured and sold them (probably Cisco), and someone pays the electricity bill for them.

When something has a cost someone is paying for it. For Nostr, there is a collective "nostr bill" to pay each month, including developer reimbursement, and the donations and subscriptions can't come anywhere close to covering that bill. So something is wrong here. We're getting all this expert time for free, all this expensive infra for free. That is never healthy imo.

Some things that really are free are sunshine and rain. And hugs if you're lucky.

I've tested Keychat, it's well developed. I've also tested White Noise, which is brittle and seems to be quite far behind Keychat. I don't really understand the focus on White Noise and their child protocol when clearly Keychat is the far better engineered app, and the better thought out system too.

I've been kicking the tires here for some weeks and my conclusion is that all of us free users are the product, or will be, somehow.

Unless it's a passionate dev surviving on donations and coffee, I always have my guard up when using costly (or at least costly enough) online infrastructure for free, as I'm doing now.

Why am I getting this all for free? Why am I not being forced to pay?

It's frustrating, because if all clients or relays (or both) force-charged everyone just a little bit to take part it'd be a very compelling network.

Here's a 4k video of a waterfall which is not going to be cheap wherever it goes. I should not be able to just show up and post that.

https://blossom.primal.net/2c0759240fefe3723885573ad72f34befe8bb9ea4c10d3e737e0ff30f3b87c64.mp4

Posthog is open source, I use the open-source version of that, but I'm pretty sure I'm the product there one way or another. Same with Supabase.

For me, if it's a closed loop between passionate devs and donations, with no other money in the system, then I agree with you. And it doesn't have to be open source, just that closed loop.

But here in nostr is not such as closed loop. There is a lot of money here, clearly. All us free users, we're all the product of something, just not clear what yet.

I understand to a degree, but part of me sees that thinking as the cardinal sin of the internet. Things on the internet that cost money to run should never start off being free, it's just far too hard to make everyone pay for them later.

If everyone needs to pay for them one day then it should be like that from day one. I want myself and everyone else on a network like this to be forced to pay, even just a little, for reassurance that we're all not, in some way that will only be clear later, the product.

I thank you for whatever portion of my free lunch you're covering :) Though I do feel all of nostr should require some payment to take part, even if very small. Everything here just feels way too free.

Call me old fashioned, but if you're using something without paying for it then you are the product, always and forever.

As far as Nostr goes, I feel like i'm the product. And for White Noise I feel like I'm the product too. Because I'm using both for free, and I know there is NEVER such thing as a free internet lunch.