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technologist • writer • musician blog https://rosano.ca/blog | vlog https://rosano.ca/vlog | log https://rosano.ca/log

i learn from everyone, but the teacher is myself

Replying to Avatar Râu Cao ⚡

Did a little Nostr talk at a small bitcoin meetup with mostly non-technical users last night, as they asked for people to talk about stuff they're building with it.

The idea was for builders to talk about their projects. But instead, I had to give a general Nostr 101 talk, because only about a quarter of people had even heard about Nostr before, virtually nobody used it regularly, and there was also no other speaker present.

Observations:

* People who were aware of Nostr were also much more interested than the others. They mostly had the usual questions:

** What about spam?

** It feels like Nostr has lost all traction (following users who aren't posting anymore)

** Is it possible to get an endless stream of interesting posts? ("I'm used to doom-scrolling")

** How many relays are there?

** How difficult is it to run your own relay?

** What if one company (e.g., Primal) gets to "control Nostr" through market share?

* And a couple of new ones for me:

** Can I spam people's inboxes for profit (i.e. mine relays for user interests, then target users with DMs)?

** Has someone built a DEX order book on Nostr yet?

Generally speaking, Nostr was still perceived as social media only. Which makes sense, because the least experimental clients are focused on micro-blogging, of course. I did explain the Other Stuff, and also demo'd my blogging software, but the questions and interest were almost all about the social media use case.

Most of the evening felt a bit like talking about the fediverse in 2018 or so. Now you just point to Meta having a Fediverse timeline in Threads, and there's simply no question that the protocol is useful to enough people that a company of that size would add it to their product. It also went through the same waves of adoption, where people brought a lot of followers to the protocol, only to then stop posting and make the place feel empty for those followers. And with every wave of adoption, more people stay and make it more interesting for the next wave.

not sure if it's equally helpful for people who know nostr already versus not, but nostr:npub1dcl2hdq9r99rr6hkhhe00z00yyu87zsdwwsw3g4fqdue7vdad6psc5r7qw's recent video about AT Protocol has a structure that could work for nostr https://spectra.video/w/1FRNBf5MZ23NGFh5knt1fh?start=4m16s

grouping these together:

- military's "never give a command that won't be obeyed"

- teacher anti-pattern of "instructions that the student can't follow"

- basic-minded "using a foreign language to feel superior with someone who doesn't know it"

related to communication fails creating a false sense of authority and effectiveness. somehow everyone loses, but the speaker doesn't know.

i continue to be blown away by local community centers all over the world and how they offer so much that isn't legible or relevant to technological systems – the underrated potential of not needing platforms to care for or live with your neighbours.

a kenyan woman got out of her rickshaw as i walked past, looked at me and spoke in english, "hi jesus!"

like a paywall requires money to access, a nerdwall requires technical knowhow

psa to please help your friends setup tech alternatives as a social event: switch together so everyone transitions successfully with known contacts on the new platform. lone profiles leave momentum on the table.

from observing what you see to observing how you watch

when heading somewhere people ask "have everything you'll need?" and as a backpacker i respond "this is everything i have".

whichever side you take, someone profits from the merch

when does it make sense to focus on not liking someone's approach versus accepting and appreciating diverse ways?

attachment to a specific strategy is not strategic

"in it, but not *of* it"

listing your options sensitizes you to notice them.

if it's obvious to you, it's for someone else.

Asymmetry might be a synonym for power.

Inflation means: after working to earn money, you need to work again so that "your money works for you".

What incentivizes a business to treat existing customers better than new ones?

More useful than agreeing is to hear why we come to our conclusions.

I wish for you everything you wish for those people over there.