Replies (156)
Nostr is not struggling, it's doing quite well for a 2.5yo protocol 🫡
Wat?
As long as the bridges are working fine, it shouldn't matter that much which protocol people use since we all end up in one big open network.
I'm fine with following and interacting with bluesky and mastodon users over bridges. If they ever want to come here natively great, but I can live without it.
Love the energy!
I don’t agree with some points of this take. Censorship resistance is a strong property of Nostr but it’s not the main point for majority of folks. It’s your portable identity, portable data, and free network effects, combined with use cases beyond just social media — which seems like a core focus of your note. There’s nothing wrong with having overlap with X — the point is Nostr is already almost a superset of what X provides but with even more.
I got into Nostr before I got into Bitcoin. Just because there’s a concentration of a certain demographic, doesn’t mean the protocol is necessarily catering to only that demographic. Where I do agree with you is that Nostr needs the other stuff with thoughtfully designed experiences to succeed to have folks want to use it.
@npub1c0nf...g243 intends to be one, and sounds like Satlantis is, too.
I think having some nostr marketing budget in OpenSats makes a lot of sense.
Just as an eg I suggested reaching out to someone like Jay Dyer who seems open to sponsorship, is already a bitcoiner - accepting on-chain BTC donations on his show. Importantly he is not enclosed in the bitcointwitter bubble and reach. Just as an example.
Unfortunately nostr has sort of got the reputation (perhaps not all the unfairly) of being a bitcointelegram group. Which is obviously slightly unfair seeing as nostr is more than the microblogging platform, but that is how people encounter it.
I think your right tho. Bluesky soaks up the people who want to boycott Elon and those who want the retro leap vibes of reliving Left Twitter 2010s. You know the kind of thing... Back in the day when posting 'be gay, do crime' was considered edgy or something (now your HR manager has a poster of it in their office).
I would also say substack plays quite a significant role in the 'good enough' lack of censorship, similarly to twitter. (But also have you seen the comments section of Instagram lately, they seem to be hands off to drive up rage engagement..?).
Realistically nostr will struggle to get numbers here with it being culturally predominantly a bitcointwitter offshoot. Unsurprisingly, not many people outside of the BT expat bubble won't stay for too long with the mostly monotopic environment.
Which is kind of why I think small step of appealing to the likes of Jay Dyer and his audience, the periphery of BT - the bitcoin-sympathetic is probably a good bet. Especially if you want more than people who turn up for a day or two. (I won't bother listing the waves of users nostrbhas had and lost).
It’s 1982. SMTP is dead.
Asking for a marketing company to receive a grant to promote a protocol sounds ridiculous. There will be profitable companies that use nostr in a big way and those companies will have marketing budgets. Maybe save the funding for those companies
What if we all went back on Twitter (temporarily) and spammed the hell out of #nostr to get it trending?
I see your point, and agree it is slightly ridiculous lol. You might be more hopeful than me and that might be the difference. I think you probably may need slightly ridiculous solutions to a slightly ridiculous dilemma of umm network effect / cultural echo chamber stagnation. There's no reason why it couldn't be an grant allocated with a stipulation it must be spent on marketing? (I realise this also sounds ridiculous what with nostr devs needing the money for more short term pressing matters). I don't know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I like nostr & I'm here to make it better
Setup your wallet to receive zaps 🤙
It’s just another echo chamber. I appreciate the effort it took to build this place but I’m fast losing interest to continue.
Nostr is struggling because they chose social to test the protocol .. everyone hates social or not ! .... but no one wants more of it ! Besides the network effects are impossible to break ..
That said , if it survived social experiment, then sky is the limit .. both technically as well as to market standpoints ..
not great not terrible
View quoted note →Buy sell trade “market place” but it actually included firearms. Because fb and Twitter won’t do it.
THIS is what I’m talking about
When there is enough variety in topics on Nostr, a varied audience can connect.
Nostr has been over-branded and branding is a central planning mechanism. When I started with Reddit or Twitter, I never used their branding as some kind of flag or banner.
I think a positive step forward is to reduce the bashing of other media channels.
One of Nostr's problem is trying to be different from Twitter while not understanding what makes Twitter valuable to its users.
Yes, that is probably one of the reasons for the slow growth. This will vanish over time though.
What do you mean with struggle? Is it just that its taking time for adoption? Or is it more the capitalization of devs? From a distance it looks quite fast if I see what’s developed and used. Could easily be wrong 😇
I’ve noticed as much in your writing. Which is a big part of why it appeals to more than just Bitcoiners.
And yep - I’m also optimistic wrt roadmaps. Step 2 is we all have to execute on the roadmaps. But step 3 still remains: viable go to market approaches that are more & more compelling.
Of all the pillars of network growth, I think comms is still the weakest.
1. Tech is great.
2. Design, and there “Product” is catching up.
The areas of weakness:
3. Comms / Go to market.
4. operational excellence.
We’re going in the right direction for sure, and the correct order of operations.
At the end of the day, I’m just pointing out that the next peak is going to require a new / different focus.
Till a Silk Road is build on Nostr we won't know if it's uncensorable.
My bet is that Mostr will be the a stepping stone for it.
Development is great.
See my comment 10min ago to Lyn.
Clarifies further.
And the biggest area of struggle IMO is where nostr lives in people’s minds (outside of the regular crowd on here).
It’s struggling to find a place.
BlueSky, as shit as it is, found a place, and it’s very clear: “The Anti-X”.
And it’s growing 10-20x the rate that nostr is, as a result
I like the optimism here, and my advice is to drop references to pill, pilling etc. It's a bizarre insider reference imo and one whose roots are a bit condescending to the people we aim to win over. Just my two ⚡️⚡️ 🤩 the Network Product angle is interesting. How do we find things here? For me, the discoverability layer is a key part of Nostr to build. Happy to consult on this (I'm an information architect)
Currently, NOSTR is a place where bitcoiners can be bitcoiners without being harassed by those that are not onboard with the paradigm shift, yet.
not being able to delete content is a massive barrier to meaningful adoption
Where is the Sybil resistance?
Discovery is probably what needs to be improved on. I find the best content in unlikely conversation.
🤐🤷♂️
Maybe we shouldn't use terms like "censorship resistant" and instead say "you can post whatever you want and no one can stop you." Because that's the reality of it, yes? This might be a little misleading but maybe we could also say that you can "make money" off of nostr since a lot of clients have lightning built in. You could also say "hey you can make an infinite amount of accounts on nostr with no workarounds needed." That would also spark people's interest but also turn some away. As far as I know, couldn't we also say that you can post a note that contains volumes of text? I've also seen some nostr streams on noStrudel. I feel like I'm being a little too obvious and shallow here; I haven't really deeply thought about this and this is just my first reaction thoughts.
You're not wrong.
The people that still pay attention to msm aren't the ones going to come to nostr.
I really don't care if all the bluesky people want to wall themselves off there in their echo chamber because they are the type that aren't swayed by truth, facts and logic anyway. They are the emotional, theoretical types.
The value of nostr is here, it's real and that's all it needs to be. Like bitcoin up until about this year.
Those who can see actual value will arrive. Those who can't are better left behind.
From marketing point of view, which brand sounds better :
"nostr" or "bluesky"?
yes, yes and yes. I said it a hundred times. #nostr does not need more generic nips. Nostr needs use cases and business models. else it will fail to change anything.
It's not struggling. It's a time preference thing. The same argument has been talked about Bitcoin. "It's old tech" "It's too slow" "There's faster versions that do better things"
For me Nostr is doing a job and doing it well. This is the problem with transitioning from a consumerist economy to a sound money economy. The mindset is "now, now, now" and that doesn't build quality - it builds quantity. Which will eventually offer nothing productive, and break society.
Marshall doing big things in NZ
@npub1x6fv...8wfj and
@kohei out there in Japan.
Dont think Nostr is struggling at all merely growing up.
No. You just didn’t read what I said.
The point of my post is that outside of the tiny bubble on here, nobody knows where to place nostr in their minds.
That is a communication problem, NOT a tech problem.
And blue sky, with inferior tech, is doing a 10x better job with comms, by catering to the weirdo’s (that shitshow is growing at 20x the pace)
Furthermore, you clearly don’t understand network effects.
Unlike bitcoin, Nostr doesn’t have direct economic incentives built in, so I the network is more fragile and susceptible to becoming a tiny echo chamber.
Nothing in my post suggested “we need it all now” - but that there needs to be more thinking done on comms. Right now 90% or more of the focus is on tech - and IMO, we’ve got good enough tech to begin putting resources and effort toward comms & marketing.
Does that help clarify?
Bluesky sounds like its selling dodgy custodial investments. Just my first reaction to the name!
Great points.
I always thought that the deplatforming of popular people was not only an idealogical selling point but also a giant arbitrage opportunity.
The biggest component would then be having someone with the charisma and energy to onboard that popular content creator and their audience as quickly as possible while the iron is hot.
Not sure who would be a good candidate. Could be a tall order but I think slick UX for normies + talent on the persuasion/onboarding side could go a long way when those opportunities present.
That's right whatever it may be you can associate the name to a mental image. You can't with nostr.
Nostr doesn't compete so much with Twitter, FB or other social networks, but more with single-sign-on providers such as Google or Microsoft. Using multiple apps with one verified signin. And have a good payment option at the same time. Only without KYC and annoying middlemen. That's the slogan. Twitter is also trying to go in the direction of an “everything app” because it can't grow with only posting notes; Nostr is competing with this. And it has the potential to replace all the big tech with it.
The social media application stands out at the moment, of course, but it's not for everyone. The ecosystem and the other apps need to be pushed more. There are people who have nothing to do with social media but sell things on eBay all day long. Shopstr is a promising candidate. Or # asknostr for Quora-like platforms. And there are more use cases where identity and payment are central.
You know, I got my first high with a Zap, but my second, no less, high with a small freelance gig via Shopstr. I've never done a job so stress-free, fast and straightforward. More of this please!
"But “competing against everyone” is a losing strategy."
Who says that? New times require new dimensions in competition. There are a lot of devs here, we're all here. It's just a matter of structuring and incentives.
And I think we _have_ a tech problem. No product is fully developed and everyone knows things are buggy. Even with good marketing, we would have a lot of disappointments after onboarding. For example, how do you explain to the masses in a non-technical way that you can't change/delete things? The lack of such a basic function alone will cause a rethink in online behavior and will also cause some regrets.
I wasn't talking on a startup/company level here. But thanks for the quick judgment.
I really like this conversation.
Somethings I would like to help make general onboarding easier.
Focus on making account creation and security of keys easier and more convenient. I have some thoughts on this. As it is hard for me to onboard a person securely in short and consistent way.
Also some tools for content modification would be useful. Such as image processing. Twitter has it built in. Free apps are full of crap.
And then I think it can become easier to start promoting the eco system to a wider audience through different avenues. Such as a social app. A services app. A media app. Where your profile is yours and follows you.
So in summary. Maybe the benefits need to be up sold more. Not the features.
Benefit of your account and data being yours. And an ability to manage it better than a google account.
Just thoughts. Thanks.
🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽
100% agree. Will repost with my 2 cents added.
Saying that the Nostr is struggling is same as saying that TCP is struggling or Bitcoin is struggling.
In fact, the Nost is now more thriving than ever before
gatekeeping with Bitcoin is not the solution
I find it also odd that everyone embraces a guy that had the most censored platform at times when it needed to be open and he collaborated with the govt on many levels and his excuses are dumb
Nostr embraces him only for the money which is ironic
I dont know why people say this. I edit and/or delete posts all the time
we need other stuff, just notes won't cut it
I think with Elon's takeover of twitter and the continuing alienation of people, Nostr is at the right place at the right time but I agree that it would be great if it could capitalize on this opportunity more rapidly. The "gradually then suddenly" mantra is not wrong but maybe it is too idealistic.
Apart from the no-brainer to capture as much of the bitcoin crowd as possible and - for lack of a better term - better marketing, two aspects could also be considered:
a) similar to bitcoin's value proposition, not looking at it from a western perspective but thinking about the long term appeal of Nostr to people living under authoritarian regimes. It should be immediately obvious to anyone living under such a regime how Nostr differentiates from Twitter & co in many regards (e.g. doxxing risk from the central authority, shutting down their account because the government said so etc.). Make Nostr better known to those people and maybe we see a rapid rise in participation. I realize many good people like
@gladstein are working that angle already but could we do more in that direction?
b) that might be controversial but I strongly believe if one could convince a major celebrity to switch to Nostr exclusively from twitter, you will have a big portion of their following joining along. Imagine if Taylor Swift tomorrow declares that she quits twitter and will continue on Nostr! Nostr would immediately gain millions of users. Question is, if/how to convince a celebrity with a strong following to become exclusive? Apart from idealistic arguments, maybe purely financial motivation is needed? I realize this is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way but what if instead of
@jack supporting Nostr development work with the next round of money, Swift gets paid $5M to become Nostr exclusive for 3 months? This might have a bigger impact on Nostr' popularity and uptake than anything else.
Not the morally best way to do it and the numbers might be off but I'm more playing devils advocate a bit here for brainstorming reasons.
As Lynn pointed out, 10x the marketing budget nabs 10x the users. Why doesn't Nostr have that kind of marketing budget? Why don't VC's want to back it? Because they have no control here, and that is a feature.
Great thread
@Svetski. Some very valid points here. At the end of the day the Nostriches are Unimportant! We mean nothing to the world. We are only a small group that understand what
@fiatjaf and the other great minds of this protocol will mean to the future of humanity. And why. Incentive is the key. What is it that drives people to use something? Two of the main forms of "payment" is monetary and recognistion = ego. People like to be heard and recognised. X, Facebook Instagram etc they are all about recognition and some do make some money from it. The social media aspect of #nostr has the oppertunity two democratise this far further than the big existing platforms where one needs to be verified blah blah etc. Anyone can send sats to anyone for what they write. Very much a differenciator. Also #nostr socials are #bitcoin money driven. We should have some interesting times ahead. Let's use this as an opportunity to get people interested in #bitcoin. "Hey you know at #bitcoin thing that is going up. There is a social media platform called #nostr @primal where you can potentially get some #bitcoin really easy". And then of course last but not least they cannot turn it off or hide information from us like youtube. Facebook etc has been doing and stealing our information. At the same time. All this said. I think we need realise that the social media part of #nostr is just scratching the surface of what change it can and will bring to society. We believe at
@illuminodes that we are at the forefront of an internet revolution. The adoption of #nostr based real world adoption is about showing the benefits to society by using the protocol. Simple to implement. Cheap to implement. Data accuracy is 100% and verified. This in turn will give the user more confidance in using it. Also the idea that user is being given control over their own identy and data can be sold as a sence of empowerment. I would say that the world is now very open to that sense of empowerment. Just like bitcoin was launched after the global financial crisis. All the medical and manipulation has readied humanity to be open to these type of ideas of self control and something society would love to embrace. Not everyone straight away but slowly. Look what has been achieved in 15 year with @bitcoin. Our own approach to rolling out the #nostr based #saludprotocol with a real world implementation in partnership with a real world institution. We believe this is key towards proper adoption and simple on-boarding. Understanding the market segment we are working with. As the users are using this technology over time people can learn what they have. How they now are in control and have control over #freewill like
@jack talkes about. The big message at the end of the day comes down to the fact that we need to focus on what drives humans to do things. Not on what drives just a small group humanity. Again we #Nostriches are non Important. Let's build 🌐#nostr
I wouldn’t call something that ends up driving irrelevance bc it couldn’t attract capital, “a feature”
But u do u
VC's don't back decentralized things.
I think that would be taking a few steps back. Honestly, I think adoption is a very slow burn. People will use it but it'll have to spread by word of mouth. Perhaps a company down the line will use nostr and it'll be huge. That happened with Linux gaming, Valve, and the Steam Deck. So it's possible it happens again.
with a client feature or something else?
Your client (I use amethyst) has to support it and so do the relays that you post to. In general, the relays do because the majority are strfry.
ios here
Getting paid p2p via zaps IS the killer app idea here surely?!
We need more real honest journalism on here…actual news, I would pay subscriptions for good journalism.
And more doers, I want to read more about what people are doing to make their lives better…inspiration and education and again I would happily pay someone a monthly fee for content like that. So ideally it would be able to handle the content being uploaded; multiple pictures and videos. Is that even possible without subscriptions/advertising revenue?
The censorship thing is not what most people care about (that could change of course) but I feel like getting paid p2p via zaps is the killer app idea here?! Anything else is starting from scratch.
We know that earning in Bitcoin is not like earning in Fiat. If just 5-10% of your income is earned via Nostr/Zaps in Bitcoin and you can save that for at least 5 - 10 years those sats will be worth considerably more. Main issue is we live in a debt based society, we’ve been brainwashed to think only about today, people only value the money that can be earned and spent today, it’s hard to change that mentality overnight!
i’d flip the question—it’s not about who we compete with, but who we’re delivering value to. once that’s clear, knowing the competition becomes relevant.
there’s a simple 4P framework for early startups struggling to find product-market fit: persona, problem, promise, product.
the product must deliver the promise that solves the problem for your persona.
if anyone wants to dive deeper into nostr marketing, i’m happy to help—got a good bit of marketing/startup/tech experience 🤙
Best response so far.
I got sucked into the competition frame, but what you said is really the correct frame.
That being said, same principle applies. Our market isn’t just “everyone”. That’s a retarded take, which too many nostr people have
Zaps are definitely not the killer app. In fact, I think the focus on zaps does way more damage to nostr than good.
Businesses that can attract capital need to see a path to making money on nostr. I know that advertising is disliked here, but it's because the current internet ad model is tightly coupled with surveillance. Nostr has the chance to redefine how ads are delivered. I believe zapping people gets their attention better than anything. If zap ad conversion rates can be favorably compared to normal ads, then there is incentive for capital to build larger zap-ready audiences.
I'd argue that it stems from the mind viruses we got from fiat thinking, that creates this expectation that something needs to be adopted by critical mass user base in a very short timeframe.
nostr grows with builders, building their idea. we don't know which use case is going to turn everyone. it might be cat memes, it might be freedom money. time will tell
i’ll start with my personal 4p that led me here:
persona:
i’m a startup founder (in the eu) with 10+ years in proptech. i had a bitcoin story years ago, similar to what
@Derek Ross described once (“old discs turned into a multi-million dollar mirror”). i’ve always been into privacy and osint.
problem:
i never had instagram or facebook - it’s just not me. i like good conversations and interesting people. i tried twitter, but hated the ads (problem 1) and even more, (p2) the algorithms serving up the same quasi-influencer content (“ten ways to this…” and “what i’ve learned from…”).
this led to a third problem - every social media platform today is a selling tool. if not through ads, then through influencing. ads are annoying, but influencing feels fake, and i don’t want that in front of my face.
product:
that’s how i ended up on nostr, probably through some article on
@jack involvement. i read the paper, explored tons of websites (com, org, band, watch, you name it), and found @primal available on iOS. here i am.
nostr promise:
i see no ads and no influencers.
value-for-value and full control are the promises that hooked me.
if ads show up in my feed, i can switch clients. if i encounter annoying influencers, i can mute them.
last but not least—
i’m still short here, but i already like you guys. i enjoy reading your notes, discussions, memes. you’re a bunch of smart people, and that’s a promise hard to deliver on the web 💜
pv 🤙
trial and error - sure, but to make it effective there must be some thesis we test
Eek really? Why do you think that? I feel like that’s the draw and anything else is starting from scratch. I get that the decentralised stuff is the underlying reason this exists but like Bitcoin you need the NGU draw the people, to then purple pill the orange pilled surely? Do people not pay with their attention first and then their money on social? The masses are hypnotised by money, they’re unable to see anything else unless you can trick or teach them?
Bitcoin Circular Economies that use the Lightning Network is the biggest draw, and the problem is that the communities that need those structures the most are usually in the locations where Internet bandwidth is lacking or the most expensive per KB. I mean, it still works to transfer value via phone from person to person, but building a large enough network to start to build a monetary foundation for an entire community is a long haul project, not something to be taken lightly or just mentioned in passing.
Nostr being a single global platform where everyone is equal hasn't been seen since the early days of myspace. We need to relearn what a social network is, how it is built, and how it connects to the larger world IRL and economy.
The reason I came to Nostr is because I followed the people I love to follow. Some of them exclusively post here. I’m not a producer here, I’m a consumer. I assume you are both? I come here for content, the zaps make me want to produce content but also support more of the people I love to follow. We all look at the protocol from different perspectives I guess. What unites our want/need to be here?
Maybe this one will be it in the future.
We're building it in that direction!
Appreciate you laying it out.
But I don’t think what you laid out is a viable pathway to something large or significant.
If nostr is going to be some minor little network where a few people congregate to avoid ads and just chat to each other - sure. I see value in that.
But that won’t change the web or make any meaningful impact in the world.
The future is content creation, and that means more and more content creators and a larger and larger creator economy. (Yep…more influencers).
Sure - 80% of them are cringe, but 20% are excellent educators and there is loads to learn. (Maybe it’s 90/10, or 99/1 ).
The web is going to become the future of education. And that means content creators, selling stuff, and that also means ads.
Will Nostr play that game ?
Or will it remain small and fringe ?
> I see no ads and no influencers
Literally 80% of nostr users are Bitcoin influencers.
Both amethyst and Nos allow note deletion and most popular relays honor it.
this is helpful. just deleted a note on NOS and it seemed to work across Primal and Damus.
Also got this web app that is just for note delete requests
Publish Nostr Event Deletions!
Publish Nostr Event Deletions.
✍️
Yeah, but for people who don't get Bitcoin, there isn't really any way of paying for relays. Most people associate Bitcoin with scammers and are going to stop listening as soon as it is mentioned unfortunately. These people may be interested in freedom of speech or the ability to own your own identity and following, but dismiss nostr because using it required them to also be interested in Bitcoin.
The same is true for people into crypto. Nostr is a killer for most niche shitcoins because it can do what most token projects try and achieve using Bitcoin, which has better stability and network effect. Bitcoin would naturally come to be used if we allowed a free market. But by insisting on Bitcoin only, we are doing the same thing that shitcoins do, but with Bitcoin. But making clients that can use multiple crypto currencies we would undermine them by exposing to Bitcoins network effect.
The former group is more important but the second is a good thing to do on principle to demonstrate that nostr doesn't care what monetary unit it uses.
The only issue I have with my Nostr client (primal) is that the refresh is slow ... other than that not bad at all....
I also can't send photos on private messages 😕
This is a very good point; albeit up until saying "making clients that can use multiple crypto currencies." I don't think we should be encouraging other crypto currencies.
I think your line of thinking is right but the conclusion that we should encourage or support scams for adoption is wrong. Of course, nothing's stopping anyone from making a client that does support such crypto coins.
Did we forget ordinals and Bitcoin magazine's scam shill articles? I understand mentioning this isn't exactly directly related to your point but I bring it up because I think I'm seeing a pattern here. I think it's a slippery slope that's down the same avenue of thinking that made those kinds of articles happen at Bitcoin magazine.
Is nostr a Bitcoin thing? Honestly, yes. But could it exist without money being attached in any way? Absolutely. But I think that hardly matters given our reality.
I think it's just the nature of the beast and the unfortunate reality that people will immediately turn away if bitcoin is mentioned. In time they will learn either the hard way or the easy way. That's okay and people will find utility in nostr as much as they will in Bitcoin. Patience, we don't need to play games to try and "get people on nostr." Though I think such a thing is fun to ruminate on and speculate.
my point here is more that not everyone is going to be turned by the same use case at the same time. so, on top of what you said, we should adjust our expectations accordingly
Aw man, I just realized I misread your note. My bad! 😔
💯 true, nostr isn’t a startup locked between investors' expectations, and that’s a big comfort. the challenge is to be patient enough
there’s a difference between influencing an idea and trying to sell some stuff. for me, value for value is the path to a new, humble creator’s economy.
thanks, i get what you mean about significance and changing the web.
i’m in that too. not just here - my company is pushing to transform the commercial real estate industry towards full information transparency. it’s a hard task, but that’s the fun part in the end.
ambitions should be high, but timing (is the market ready for my solution?) and strategy (start small, dominate, then expand) matter too. the result of these two factors is pragmatic tactics that let you keep moving forward, day by day, step by step.
about ads:
> selling stuff, and that also means ads
if it comes to that, i’ll just start my own client 🙃 and that freedom is exactly what i love about nostr!
but… i think we’re underestimating the potential impact of value-for-value.
@jb55 created something incredible with zaps; you won’t find that anywhere else.
still looking with a fresh outsider's eye, i think vfv is a big opportunity that could lay the foundation for a new, humble, and healthy creator’s economy. in my mind, it’s an ads-free model (of course!) where clients can earn fees (like patreon, substack) and, instead of disrupting MY feed with THEIR paid content, they invest in new mechanisms to discover worthy things. and as i see these ideas are already popping up in discussions.
Yeah, I see your point about not wanting to promote scams. At the end of the day the user has the responsibility to decide what they determine to be a scam. It's not the responsibility of the devs. Giving choice is not necessary promoting scams. I'm thinking of something like linking an open source wallet like Cake Wallet.
I disagree that nostr is a Bitcoin thing. Bitcoiners built it, but it's bigger than Bitcoin. If it is limited to Bitcoin we limit its network effect and compromise it's ability to be adopted. It will become a niche network that withers as a similar, more open protocol gets adopted more widely
Here's how a post usually goes on social media with a centralised algorithm.
- Have great 'hook', something controversial like 'why something doesn't work'.
- offer a better alternative, normally something the person posting has invested interest in for their own gain or to position themselves as an expert to build trust to leverage later on.
- Tag all the other people on that platform who have built up trust already and are actual experts - to reaffirm the posters 'expertise', leveraging their trust.
- At the end of the post ask everybody to 'like,share, and comment' to manipulate the algorithm 👀 for their own gain.
-When confronted by the idea they've posted about... become ultra defensive and use words like 'No, you're wrong' without considering the pros and cons of the response.
Is your company going to integrate Nostr on the backend?
Get that real estate data decentralized and you'd get more independent data sources and could do better real-time analysis and AI embeddings.
I think the strongest incentive for nostr comes from the "own your audience" or better put "own your connections".
This comes from owning your online identity.
Nostr will be the only place where you will be able to build a reputation that lasts FOREVER.
Comms need to be directed towards people with something to offer: Serious content creators, businesses, freelancers, open-source project leaders etc. They have skin in the game as they will ALWAYS lose their hard-earned reputation until they realize, on nostr your connections i.e. your reputation cannot be rugged. Don't waste your time on silly normies with nothing to gain, nothing to lose.
So the message becomes:
"If you start to build your audience on nostr apps you will make compounded gains without the fear of rugpull - Otherwise you will be left behind by people who made that choice earlier.
Sure it takes courage. Sure it takes work to onboard your audience and explain how things work here differently but this is such a small cost compared to the guarantees nostr provides: Your everlasting online identity that cannot be canceled, corrupted or owned by anyone but you."
Time is on the side of builders on nostr.
Agree and disagree. So how does an echo chamber work. Is the first attempt. Which is really how think your thinking. The point of a positive echo chamber is new ideas grow and hopefully flourish. The Meztdow and CPunks among others, was the opportunity to collaborate in a deformed discussion. Best ideas got to the top with critical thinkers. And that brainstormed. The point of open honest conversation is to agree on the smartest ideas. That’s it.
You just make more articles to keep people interested. What happens when people stop reading your shit? You have nothing to back it up?
the problem with commercial real estate data is that it's fragmented (many players, each aggregating the same/similar information for their own purposes). as a result, there's at least a double cost - one to collect the data, and one to verify it, multiplied by the number of players. this leads to many implications, including information gray areas and institutional players exploiting insider insights.
today, our platform solves the problem of data collection (we act as an integrator), but the missing puzzle is verification.
a few years ago, I was working on the idea of "property digital passports" - we built a theoretical model, the idea that each property could have its nft-like token with its history records chained in it (so there shouldn't be a need to double verify information that has been confirmed in the past).
didn't develop it further because we needed to put more effort into the core business, but... when I came across nostr, I was very excited because the concept is very close to what we were looking for.
to answer your question if we will use nostr, i still need to learn more and understand it better, but I'm very optimistic.
They're trying to sell you Bitcoin. Nothing more nothing less. Number go up.
some influence, some are excited, but what matters is that here, i’m in control
I disagree on some things here but fair enough. Onward friend! 🎉
I think the best narrative is interconnection of different apps. You get app with reviews of restaurants from your friends. Highlights of content. Posts and images. You can meet your friends at events.
All these apps use the same identity and social graph.
It's like if Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Medium, Yelp, Meetup, ... used the same backbone.
I think this is a strong angle.
That being said, I do see some challenges in having my identity shared across multiple different platforms.
For example. People communicate with their audiences quite differently on Instagram, compared with X, compared with Substack, and certainly when compared with LinkedIn.
I’ve had a number of conversations with content creators who’ve mentioned this.
It’s not a deal breaker for them, but it’s something I don’t have a very clear answer for.
But overall - I think the portable identity and portable social graph is the biggest benefit, and the one worth leaning into with messaging & comms.
Pablo has a really good angle on this with how he intends to build
@npub1w0rt...cu4x
I think that approach is infinitely more compelling than V4V.
I personally don’t think V4V scales. That’s why busking is not really a viable commercial strategy for 99% of the market.
Either way - this community needs more minds like yours around.
PS: You should also connect with
@Tanja and give her some feedback on her new initiative.
Yes. One possible angle is that they won't do it like that. If you post a photo, someone might look at it in a photo viewing app like Instagram, some might see it as a blog or a microblog.
People looking at Nostr on Twitter often search for social media management app that can repost content from Twitter to Nostr. I always suggest not to do that, Nostr is different and has its own language and interactions are different. And it's best to get a feel for it first.
For creators, there are two ways of looking at it. First is that there is not much engagement here, you can't target, you can't convince the algorithm to show your posts. The old tricks don't work. On the other hand, for some niches, Nostr still is the least crowded channel (idea I got from Tim Ferris's work). Your competition is probably not here yet. It feels like town square, there is a nicer vibe to it.
But maybe it just isn't for creators, maybe it's for a few of us and it'll stay like it and it's ok.
Have you spoken to 42pupusas?
thank you, appreciate you sharing all these insights. i’ve still got a lot to learn - diving into
@npub1w0rt...cu4x model next
Agree that censorship resistance is not enough of a feature for the average person to be interested in Nostr. But I disagree that if we can’t capture the freedom money group then we’re SOL. Nostr has more opportunities than freedom perks (although they are important), and I’m personally excited for Nostr to be able to recommend content that’s much more interesting than what’s on YouTube/Tiktok etc..
Escaping the data silos of big tech means that user information and posts across the network can be used and manipulated in new ways. User choice of a specific algorithm is HUGE and I don’t think this should be overlooked. We’re talking about fine tuning parameters so that each time you open the home page of an app, you’re actually interested in most of the content presented to you. Can’t tell you how many times YouTube recommends the same videos over and over, or more clickbait esque videos about how the world is burning and all hope is lost. Customizing your own algorithm means having the ability to filter out a lot of this.
This approach is for the few creators who really think about legacy and long-term purpose. Most creators are shortsighted, only looking for quick fame and monetary benefits within a few months or 1-2 years. If they don't see traction within a few months, they stop creating and start chasing another platform, like TikTokers becoming YouTubers or YouTubers becoming TikTokers.
TikTok provided fast Fame
Youtube provided a good amount
For 4% of creators, this approach can work.
Need to think about the other 96% of creators.
We need to relearn human psychology, specifically what brings people together and what inspires them to open Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok.
The majority don’t care about earning or monetizing their content or comments—95% of the audience is just there for fun (except on LinkedIn).
Only businesses and creators care about fast lightning and Zaps reactions on posts; the majority still care about fun, value, and entertainment.
Let's go back to standard and purpose of networking sites.
Connect with unexplored places and people without worrying about your country's permissions or content blocking.
Connect with world on Nostr without taking permissions.
Zaps are like pennies and coins we exchange for value, and in the coming years, 95% of the audience won't care about Zaps or lightning payments.
Right now, we care because it's new and necessary from a business perspective for fast and secure payments. ( for businesses and Creators ) only 5%
The majority (95% ) only care about value— news, fun, lessons, entertainment, connecting, and solutions to problems.
Five things that will excite the majority of the audience:
1. Simple and interesting UI/UX
2. Easy connection and discussion
3. Smooth loading and consumption
4. Privacy (no data collection)
5. No constant selling
Two main tasks:
1. Design to attract and entertain
2. Create marketing assets to rank fast
What is #Bitcoin?
Be your own bank— own, control, and transfer money without needing anyone's permission.
What is #Nostr?
Be your own social media— own your content and audience, connect without algorithm limits, and earn without third-party permission.
There should be an official #nostr marketing team composed of a few marketers who will collectively create some branding, marketing, and content assets for the campaign.
Who will fund this?
As
@Svetski said,
@jack,
@ODELL, and
@npub10pen...n34f should take the initiative for funding the marketing campaign.
We need strategic campaigns designed for different creators to convince them:
- Those who care about fame should be promised exposure and recognition.
ex: Tiktokers
- Those who care about money should be offered promotion deals.
ex: Influencers
- Those who care about legacy should be given the promise of a censorship-free platform.
ex: Authors and Writers
What’s Your Take? 🤔
Do you think we should create separate clients for different formats or keep everything in one place?
📖 If you want to read articles, visit Nosit.
🎥 If you want to enjoy videos, head over to Nostube.
📸 If you want to scroll through images, check out Nostagram.
Or... should we mix all formats in a single platform for a more unified experience? 🌀
Humans make mistakes, realize them later, and often fall into deep guilt traps.
They come up with new plans and try again.
We should forgive and offer second, even third chances to everyone.
Empathy
One platform.
Separate feeds for formats, or all stuff in single feed like Xitter?
Separate feeds for formats.
Noted
separate clients for different stuff has been the way weve been progressing
True, also it will be easy to market separate platforms for separate use.
But with some expertise easily can market all in one platform.
I'm just a user, not a dev, so it's easy for me to say this and feel free to ignore my uninformed position, but... Let it struggle. Good stuff takes time and grows more resilient through the struggle. Seems like Nostr has had great legs already. I don't think we should seek mass adoption because privacy and censorship are not valued in society overall right now - it would be futile - and tricking normies into using it will help in the long run. It won't have mass adoption until those values return, and they won't for a long time or until a critical mass changed their minds. Until Nostr I hadn't used any type of social media for over a decade, and I just felt that Nostr was worthy of my efforts to participate. We have to keep going as the minority.. the 20% to make 80% of the change
Svetski
Why Nostr is struggling…
There is too much of an overlap with X, not only in the feature sets among the primary applications, but more importantly, in the kind of audience that Nostr is catering to.
Sure..censorship resistance at the protocol level is a differentiator, but the to the average person, you may as well be talking gibberish. They don’t know wtf a protocol is in the first place - let alone why it matters for censorship resistance to happen at that level, or more importantly, WHY they should trust Nostr to deliver on that promise. “Bcoz
@jack said so” is not an argument.
————
Bluesky is a case in point here.
It’s got a VERY similar feature set to X, claims to be open source / censorship resistant (similar narrative to Nostr), and is growing MUCH faster than Nostr, bc it has captured a key audience, ie; people with TDS and EDS (Elon Derangement Syndrome).
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bluesky-signups-surge-uk-amid-musks-row-with-government-over-riots-2024-08-13/?
I’ve been on there a few times, and the content quality is enough to make you want to throw up….but at the very least, it’s working for that kind of content, and for the people who want it.
I don’t have a direct answer here..but I think it’s something to do with the over-emphasis on technicals.
@DETERMINISTIC OPTIMISM 🌞 mentioned increasing the emphasis on design the other day. I agree this is a move in the right direction. We’re taking a very design-focused approach with
@Satlantis: Social Events (we’ll have ALOT more to show in the next 6wks).
That being said, it’s not enough.
IMO, Nostr is technically mature enough for us to go out there and talk about it to more people, and build a narrative BEYOND the 500 of us that are talking to each other on here.
People like
@PABLOF7z or
@Gigi can correct me if I am wrong here. Maybe there’s alot more to do technically.
But if I am right, I’d like to see more initiatives that are marketing oriented being supported by
@npub17xvf...c9as and
@npub10pen...n34f and other coalitions. Maybe we even need a council of Nostr businesses, who together pool some funds to help drive some marketing initiatives?
Whatever the case, we need to expand upon the Nostr narrative, make it more compelling and speak to more people about it.
At the very least, we have to conquer then Bitcoiners. If we can’t get the segment who are into freedom money onto the freedom of speech network, we’re DOA. That’s a first step.
I know
@Tanja is working on a very cool initiative in relation to this. The Nostr Booth is IMO a great way to make Nostr more “real” for bitcoiners by having a physical presence at all the conferences.
I know
@utxo the webmaster 🧑💻 +
@fiatjaf are doing some Podcast outreach. That’s super important too.
@mcshane and crew are putting on Nostriga. Amazing.
@miljan /
@primal are doing great things with
@paul keating, etc on the content side. I’ve got some things up my sleeve personally which I will begin to do once
@Satlantis: Social Events is in a position to represent a NEW kind of Nostr-product..
But we need MOAR..
And…we also need to find another angle that is NOT about censorship resistance. That’s clearly not working against X.
I don’t know the EXACT narrative or spin, but it has to be more “running towards” than “running from”.
More white pill, less black pill.
Anyway.
I will probably turn this into an article. I’ve been thinking more and more about “writing in public” as we build Satlantis, and sharing more about how we’re thinking about growing a “network product” on top of a “network protocol”.
If you think this was valuable, please repoast so more people can see and get involved in the discussion.
"Collections" work just like bookmarks, but they're visible to others, acting as a human discovery algorithm. The note you zap the most will appear at the top of your collection.
Nostr and the LN combines open global connections with the ability to conduct commerce locally for all goods and services. Reaching out across the world is an option and a choice, but paying for the food you eat, for the expenses of housing, education and health care, for all the things we enjoy, that's the real power that we have given over to gate keepers and middle men for centuries. That's the power we need to take back, using a medium of exchange and unit of account that doesn't fail as a store of value over time.
Nostr is more than a Social Network platform. Maybe you wanted to write only about Social media clients and not about the main NOSTR protocol.
@npub1m0st...40un is working,
Nostr Nests
Join this audio Space
is working,
Nostree
A Nostr-based application to create, manage and discover link lists, show notes and other stuff.
is working and so on.
Nostr is not struggling, Nostr is working but it needs more time
I agree with you. And those desserts look yummy!
Perhaps. But those are still niche niche niche niche niche products.
I say niche 5 times and that’s still probably too generous.
Yes - things need to start somewhere, and maybe time is all that’s needed. But I’d like to put some effort into the right places (communication and marketing) so that the time we have is more effectively utilised
This is going to be one of the biggest features for
@Satlantis: Social EventsMoney talks
Same wise
Speak for yourself, I've been doing my thing and I've never used X. I'm streaming str8 goodness in the mornings, get more Indie Web folks by not banging on about money and "owning the libs".
I don't know how many folks here have hobbies outside money? That's a good start.
Each one teach one. No context Phil Collins ftw.
Also just delete X. If you have a following and just disappear, folks might actually get it... eventually. Staying on X only feeds the beast and wastes time.
Nostr is as good as dead as far as growth is concerned. It is and will remain a marginal phenomenon. Nostr will never become more than a Bitcoin nerd niche.
Not if I can do anything about it.
But we’ll see.
Let’s hope I can prove you wrong
the issue is people are never aware of censorship because they are fundamentally repeaters and if any idea is banned they can never notice it because before they can be punished for repeating it they must first hear it somewhere but they never do since it is banned ...
thus people on every platform believe they have freedom of speech because everyone who realizes there is no freedom of speech on that platform - is banned from that platform ...
all of you loser slaves here are transplants from other slave platforms and honestly have no use for freedom since you can't say anything that would be banned elsewhere anyway ...
only way for NOSTR to be meaningful is to recruit people with the most extreme ideas not accepted anywhere else - for example Pedophilia, Incest and a total ban on religion - including both Christianity and Judaism.
so far only myself,
@Vermeil_Kisser and
@A. Linder express ANY ideas that would get us banned from other platforms. the rest of you don't know why you're here.
@Mike Dilger ☑️Did not know the A. Linder guy. Will follow him. Hope he is into TND.
Linder believes that the key to defeating Jews is dismantling Christianity
he sees Christianity as enabling Jews
that's his thesis
i agree with him that Christianity is Horse Shit but to me it would be such even without their worship of Jews and Israel ...
Christianity is very flawed when taken seriously, since it leads to viewing niggers as equal humans.
That said, I did recently clip Jay Dyer saying Eastern Orthodox allows 15 yo women to get married.
So, it's not completely worthless. Just very flawed.
I always vouch that White Patriarchy is the only way forward, so I do wonder if an atheistic version of it would be sufficient to replace Christianity.
I for one am not susceptible to bandwagoning and bribery.
Blackmail, however. Yep. I am unfortunately still mortal.
the main issue is why do we need a 6,000 year old book written by Kikes to give us permission to do anything ?
i don't care if the Pope or whoever is corrupt etc.
my question remains - why the fuck do i need that faggot to begin with ?
we need Christianity like we need Circumcision.
we don't. it's all harm for no benefit at all.
It's mostly to keep criminality down. Like, to give men fear of something greater, so that they steal less, rape less, etc.
Andrew 'Cuckold' Wilson would say that all societies need some theology, and that, even in the USSR, figures such as Stalin would become the "gods" of the nation. Same case for Mao and China from his time.
Oh well.
there is an easier way to keep criminality down.
TOTAL NIGGER DEATH.
@Low Information VoterWell said. With the Telegram ceo arrest, censorship is top of mind for many Bitcoiners.
Seems worth it to pitch them on nostr as many aren’t here and some are using Twitter.
Broadly, the pitch need to be tailored to specific groups of people.
What is the imoortant problem nostr *uniquely* solves for:
Current users?
Many Bitcoiners not on here.
The next (bigger) group of users? Who might hey be and why? Are they eBay people?
What *unmet* need does nostr meet for any group of folks?
Didn't age well, patience is important. The adoption will happen cycles, likely similar to bitcoin.
It's like saying bitcoin is struggling every time the price goes down.
Takes time!
View quoted note →I think direct lightning payments is pretty cool
Well, that might now include the 5th most populist country...so maybe?
😂😂😂
I guess that part of the narrative is taking care of itself 😅
It's not decentralized or open either
You can host your own data (PDS), but the central server decides how your posts are distributed
Normies will get frustrated logging in to a site.
Nostr login is powerful and will be ubiquitous, but it’s not ready.
That doesn't make sense. Can't other people still see the posts?
Using a lot of IG inspiration in
@Satlantis: Social Events - stay tuned
