Very nice. I would add that key rotation is a problem. But it's much less of a problem than relying on DNS and/or servers. View quoted note →

I agree Nostr is technically superior - the architecture is sound. But these are just technical properties valid now. Nostr is decentralized in technical terms, but socially and culturally it's pretty centralized. AT Protocol has architectural compromises, but could become more decentralized in practice depending on how the community evolves. It all depends on social dynamics, and this is what most builders completely ignore. You can have perfect cryptographic sovereignty and still end up with captured systems if economic incentives concentrate power, if the community becomes a tribal barrier, if cultural gatekeeping makes participation functionally impossible. The technical foundation matters, but it doesn't determine outcomes. Whether a protocol actually liberates people or just creates different forms of capture - that's purely social. And most technical communities are terrible at recognizing this until it's too late.

I think culture is downstream of technology.

Tech creates affordances. Power decides which affordances get realized. Claiming tech determines culture is just another way to avoid confronting who has power and how they use it.