The open web was built by both non-profits AND for-profit companies. Nostr is no different.
People talk like the open web was built only by idealists. Volunteers. Academics. Non-profits… that’s only half the story.
The modern internet only exists because for-profit companies open-sourced foundational tools.
🍎 Apple:
WebKit — the engine behind Safari and the original base for Chrome
Swift — modern safe systems programming
mDNS / Bonjour — local networking standards still everywhere
Apple showed: open-sourcing core infrastructure expands an ecosystem far beyond one company.
⸻
🔵 Meta
React — the #1 UI architecture on Earth
React Native — cross-platform revolution
GraphQL — new API mental model
Meta proved: open protocols win when the tools become better than the walled gardens they came from.
⸻
🟢 Google
Chromium & V8 — the engine of the modern web and Node.js
Kubernetes — the backbone of internet-scale infrastructure
Go — DevOps and cloud language standard
gRPC, QUIC, HTTP/3 — the pipes the modern web runs on
Google demonstrated: openness + corporate incentives can push entire industries forward.
⸻
🪟 Microsoft
TypeScript — the language that saved JavaScript
VS Code — the most-used dev environment
.NET (open) — enterprise backbone
Microsoft taught: the market rewards you for empowering developers, not trapping them.
⸻
💜 Here’s the Nostr Parallel
For-profit companies didn’t fight the open web… they built huge chunks of it.
Nostr is the same story, just happening in real time:
• independent devs
• researchers
• open-source maintainers
• AND startups building real businesses on an open protocol
That mix is the magic.
Nostr isn’t “against” capitalism or commerce or profit. It’s against permissioned choke points.
Companies built Web1. Companies built Web2. This time, companies are helping build something different: a web where the incentives to build and the incentives to stay open are finally aligned.
[transparency note: this post was LLM assisted through several prompts, but the idea and argument are mine]
