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Death Cab To QE
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#Bitcoin & Macro research. Evil Speculator. Ex-Bitcoin Miner. Tech systems Architecture. Fix the money, fix the world. Twitter @DeathCabToQE
Replying to Avatar Carman

🫡

Purpose = true wealth.

Boomers bought the houses then leverage them for bitcoin.

Millennials get the Bitcoin then leverage them for houses.

I’m always curious to hear what I have to say

It behooves us to have a backup plan.

Although rebuilding a following on another social media app seems tedious

Replying to Avatar Svetski

Last week I posted about "Nostr struggling" and while there were many good responses, it seems to me that a bunch of people misunderstood my premise.

I'm going to clear that up here and expand on the idea a little further.

First of all, I'm a Nostr bull. I'm sold, and I know how necessary this is. I'm still recruiting souls from twitter:

https://x.com/SvetskiWrites/status/1828403019081269661

Secondly, I know that Nostr is SUPERIOR, technically speaking - and while the apps might not be as smooth, and some of the UX might be buggy, the substrate were working with is fundamentally better than the status quo.

nostr:npub1wmr34t36fy03m8hvgl96zl3znndyzyaqhwmwdtshwmtkg03fetaqhjg240 did a fantastic job of explaining that at the recent nostr:npub1nstrcu63lzpjkz94djajuz2evrgu2psd66cwgc0gz0c0qazezx0q9urg5l conference (I suggest everyone watch that if they haven't - and I'm still bummed I couldn't make it).

There are so many NIPs, and so much tech shit going on, that nobody else stands a chance really. Elon might have cool AI, but we have nostr:npub1l2vyh47mk2p0qlsku7hg0vn29faehy9hy34ygaclpn66ukqp3afqutajft that can produce more prototypes than all the AIs in the world, combined.

That being said, my reference to "struggling" was not about the technical side of things. It was about messaging & go to market.

I speak to people every day about Nostr. I live in Brazil right now and travel on a regular basis to at least 10 countries each year. When I speak to people, they don't really care so much about censorship resistance, or Bitcoin (interestingly enough, two things Rabble also mentioned in his talk).

What they want is a place to connect, that's COOL.

And that's a VERY HARD thing to do.

nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m and the guys did it with Twitter early on, and so did the Instagram founders - but for every one "hit" - there are another 1000 well built flops which people just didn't find "cool."

Right now, the messaging is more doom, than bloom. More "you need this bc government gonna get you", and less "this is where the cool kids are at".

Now...I understand that this is gonna take time. All good things do. But if we're going to attract more people, the conversation needs to evolve.

I wrote a piece a little while back called "Social as a Service" and framed Nostr more as this substrate for a Universe of new applications. Once again, Rabble echoed this in his talk and leaned into the "Social Protocol" angle.

I personally find this more compelling. More white-pill, and more appealing for the purposes of growing a network. People need to be pulled, not pushed. The latter can work in bursts here and there (as we've seen this week since the Telegram debacle), but it's not sustainable growth.

nostr:npub1a2cww4kn9wqte4ry70vyfwqyqvpswksna27rtxd8vty6c74era8sdcw83a has been doing really good work with her framing, and I think her 80% bloom / 20% doom approach is a good one.

nostr:npub1c878wu04lfqcl5avfy3p5x83ndpvedaxv0dg7pxthakq3jqdyzcs2n8avm has some good framing too with the “city” analogy

_______________

Thinking out aloud, maybe we just need more angles. I guess the Bitcoin people are still going to be attracted by "government gonna get you" - and we're FAR from saturation in that dimension. So maybe the right approach is the have that conversation with THEM...but a very different conversation with others.

Ultimately, I hope to see more go-to-market initiatives that are user-oriented, and get people excited about Nostr. We saw that at the Nostr booth nostr:npub167n5w6cj2wseqtmk26zllc7n28uv9c4vw28k2kht206vnghe5a7stgzu3r that nostr:npub18ams6ewn5aj2n3wt2qawzglx9mr4nzksxhvrdc4gzrecw7n5tvjqctp424 kicked off, and that nostr:npub1hz5alqscpp8yjrvgsdp2n4ygkl8slvstrgvmjca7e45w6644ew7sewtysa is now working on.

We've got some plans for later this year at a few conferences as we unveil nostr:npub15xd2mmjnh3caykh77djsv73e0zkrp42jp5mwerx8f4m6su40wdvss7t3l3

I know nostr:npub1utx00neqgqln72j22kej3ux7803c2k986henvvha4thuwfkper4s7r50e8 and @fiatjaf are doing some podcast stuff, which is excellent. Also nostr:npub1693220pmp0a4c04a0p7hkz874vsxkyfrvtk2yk4zjyj3e4c0ugjs3r4j0c is doing a Nostr book.

I'm starting to repeat some of what I said last week, so I'll stop here.

Ultimately the point is this:

Nostr is not struggling "technically" speaking.

But it's not yet found a compelling enough SPACE in people's minds, outside of the Bitcoin community. And it's not found a narrative yet that's compelling, beyond the "government gonna get you / big tech gonna ban you".

When we find that, I expect things to really begin taking off.

Thankyou for coming to my TED Talk 🤣🤣🤣

Most posts on nostr are still about nostr which is problematic.

For a content platform to work it needs original content.

I’m sure it will come in time.

Tough to bring the followers from one network system to another

I suspect nostr adoption will occur in cycles similar to bitcoin adoption.

Each person will move into the new system when the old one finally pushes them past their breaking point.

Replying to Avatar Erik Cason

I’ve been off Twitter and all social media except for Nostr for a month now, and the results are hard to argue with.

I’ve started reading real books again (4 this month) and have noticed both my patience and attention increase noticeably. I also feel less angry and anxiety daily, along with being committed to my workout routine.

I found that Nostr has met my social media needs, most importantly, my own ability to self-limit with it. Nostr is a bit ‘boring’ compared to traditional social media because ITS NOT TRYING TO KILL YOU!!!

Controlling your own data isn’t nearly as important in terms of ownership, as it is about allowing that information to be used against you. All of your most intimate thoughts and feelings are data mining by massive corporations specifically to find emotional triggers for you, so they can sell you shit, or force thoughts on to you.

Fuck these people that run these companies that farm our emotions to sell us shit, and to work with corrupt government to censor our speech, sell out dissidents, and destroy our internet.

We are much, much, much more powerful than they will ever be because we don’t need force, corrosion, or permission to run these systems of social connections that they cannot destroy.

My month of social media detox has really lifted the veil from the hate industry complex that are all social media companies today. Stop prostitution your content, thoughts and powers to these shitty companies that enrich the scum of the earth, and empower illegal, unconstitutional and immoral government agencies from their dragnet surveillance.

I’ll make one last tweet explaining this and then nuking my account in the next few weeks. Then I’ll be Nostr only.

Amazing what happens when your face isn’t being melted by engagement algorithms