Replies (100)
We all agree with you...
Disarming honesty is the only growth hack that still works. Maybe it’s exactly when you stop chasing numbers that you start building something that lasts.
I don’t think users are leaving due to apps being broken - they seem to work fine for me. I think it is probably content related.
User growth struggles aren’t unique to Nostr—look at Iran’s dark fleet adapting to sanctions. When systems break, people find workarounds or leave. Nostr’s retention issues might mirror that pressure to innovate under constraints.
https://theboard.world/articles/iran-oil-dark-fleet-growthIt all went downhill when
@HODL stopped VLOGging
I’m sure it’s all of those things. But imo the biggest culprit is traditional social media that has trained our lizard brains to be addicted to what it has to offer. It’s hard to make a commitment to Nostr while you have your old twitter account waiting to go back to. I became Nostr only right after I burned the bridges behind me. I simply had nothing to go back to: no twitter, no FB, no insta. Felt uncomfortable at first but I wouldn’t be want to go back any of them now.
I don't think users left just because apps are broken
don't make simple things complicated. Most of my followings are gone, most of them Europeans, Ukranians. Why? they posted 2-3 months. No engagements, no answers, probably only persons who posted something was me. So, how do you want someone to stay here if they got zero answers, zero engagements
> So, how do you want someone to stay here if they got zero answers, zero engagements
Well, the same way as all of us are doing. You keep posting whatever is important to you, follow interesting people, reply to others, repost. Eventually you’ll get some engagement if that floats your boat. I have very small following, probably 70% of them are zombie accounts or bots. Still I get decent engagement on most of my posts. Usually from the same 5-15 people. I don’t care, it’s enough for me and I enjoy their interactions. Can we stop complaining and enjoy what we have? I don’t need an algo to make me happy.
Interview me and I will tell you not only about Pubky, but how to fix Nostr dying.
Or, it can stay as a niche Bitcoin chat tool...
the person you describing is predetermined person, the person already understands why nostr is good and what to expect. this is 0.001% of all of us. do you want nostr to be platform for selected?
I'm not using any social networks except nostr, so for me it is not a big deal not to have engagement. I can live even without nostr. also I'm a technical person so I cant imagine now using something which depends on the whims of a single person or group. again, it is the same 0.001.
and add to this that not everyone knows english or want to use it. I have ukranian friends who came here, start talking ukranian, no one here. started talking english and of course because it is war here we all cant avoid this topic. but because population here is that small there is no diversity, he listened to all that nonsense about how US started this war and how we should just listen to putin, then he just said, “Screw that,” and walked out.
so my opinion we need all the people, smart and not very
> thousands of users have come and left because apps are broken
This is inaccurate.
You onboarded everyone onto Primal apps and Primal relays, specifically. When Primal was broken or slow or filling with spam, people left instead of switching to a working stack.
They didn't come because of us, it is true, but they also didn't leave because of us.
We need @samahoole & @owenbenjamin
> do you want nostr to be platform for selected?
Same like Bitcoin. It’s for anyone but not for everyone. You can lead the horse to a river, but…
This, most people was onboarded into primal and left anyway.
Still when you see some people complain about nostr in other social medias they only used primal and never tried any other app
The honesty here is worth something. "Failing to be quite honest" — that's the kind of candor that actually builds trust on a protocol that's supposed to be about trust. Worth naming.
Growth for what, though? If nostr is an escape from social media's engagement-optimization logic, then retention metrics might be the wrong success condition. The people still here after the first wave left — they're here for a reason that won't show up in analytics.
Primal is one of the least functional clients, especially considering the resources used to build it.
Regardless of that, the real reason we dont have more users is nostr.com which i control, its the landing page for nostr, its where you go googling nostr. We get 1-2m unique views per week who all get scared away.
A beautiful industry of solutions hidden behind a shitty landing page.
Resources has always been our issue, we spend most of what we have maintaining LNbits, so nostr.com is a second thought. We also didnt want to be seen to be capturing users by hosting a client, but that time has passed, I think its possible to do and still funnel users into wider ecosystem.
Its quite remarkable this clear bottleneck isn't more obvious for an industry that had had huge sums invested. Its so obvious.
nostr.com should have a team of dedicated devs, focus groups, ux designers, instead its me squeezing in time every now and then. So yeah. Weird.
Primal lacks features (lists, proper DMs, ...), but I find it very enjoyable TBH. It will get there.
I wish cashing servers were a standard by now, run by many different actors, keeping each other honest.
Nostr.com looks good already! Worth investing some designer's time and polish it, for sure.
yes, but there is the difference. bitcoin is working in any case, nostr is working only if there is minimal amount of people to have interesting discussion. I don't know if you have noticed this, but it is not even interesting to read comments inside big posts, because they all from like-minded people, no controversy no drama
Its the newb ux. If youre a Brazilian looking for a new home compare nostr dot com to bluesky. Nostr dot com should just be a simple client, and link to the current content (which we will prob put on nostr dot org).
Current ux of technobabbling to newbs is just losing us users, millions upon millions looking at the stats
I’m not sure we are reading the same comments. There plenty infighting amongst Bitcoiners. There’s always something to disagree with.
Good point.
@Karnage HELP! 🙏
yes, I probably exaggerated
This is totally correct in my view, it’s a UX problem. At the least, it should be a case of trying out a swap of the landing page for a simple client or something that immediately shows you NOSTR content like you say, and see if that improves better at not scaring new people away with too much technical detail up front. It’s also all too early days and self-effacing and ‘it kind of works’ in tone, NOSTR is working much better than that now.
I want to chime in a say that I am new on NOSTR -- It took a bit for it to stick even with my evolving values in decentralization and data privacy concerns.
What made it stick?
Primal's interface and freedom of choice. I really like it here, but it is hard to find your herd no doubt. Keep building, they will keep coming, it will catch fire...
QnA also made a good welcome/ backgrounder page at hellonostr dot xyz. Maybe he can share info with you on how that page performs?
But still, it’s talking about a thing to a person who has already gone out on a limb and followed a link already. Your idea is the best I think to try, just show them the thing working and hope they dive right in. But give clear sign posts to more information behind that. From what you say, it couldn’t perform much worse than the current page is? This should just be a trial and error, and see what actually works best approach.
> the real reason we dont have more users is nostr.com which i control
you should make it better then
Clearly. Thats what I just said 👍
All the effort in the world "fixing" broken clients is useless when landing page scares people away. Its just funny you and others dont see the simple fix, blaming everything but the landing page
Its also amazing a great client like Amethyst can exist, built on minimal resources and working great for years, whereas primal is only just becoming usable.
“Claude, make this landing page better and more inviting to normies”
it sounds like you not taking responsibility for the fact that the domain you are squatting is shit
I agree. What about just redirecting the traffic to any existing client?
How many users do you guys have?
I don't believe it's fair to use Substack's response to the ultimatums from the governments of the UK and Australia against it. It would be more based to just say no and accept it getting blocked by those countries, but either way the situation as a whole is not Substack's fault.
Hmmm, I was literally pointing out its my responsibility. And by "squatting". You mean owning, after securing it for a lot of money at a time there were 20 of us who cared about nostr?
Just be ready for when it’s needed. The time will come. Patience.
Also not using it to do anything evil for all this time.
Integrity doesnt seem to be a quality you value.
Or maybe one of the clients agrees to build a specific landing page for users getting redirected from nostr.com
DHT comes to Nostr for the relays to talk in decentralized p2p way without needing DNS and Pubkey starts talking to Nostr as well although some kind of parser may be needed for Pubkey if you are using different formats. And then whoever wants uses Nostr or Pubkey and they are all in the same space.
you came into this thread throwing stones and continue
the lack of personal responsibility is wild
Why are people worried about catering Nostr to normies.
Make Nostr good in and of itself. Don't tweak it to please others.
Primal is toxic and dangerous.
They filter information that they don't want you to see.
Apps are not broken but just no interesting content that i can’t find in X
You mean because of the home server, which is reachable via DHT if I'm not mistaken? I've read some of the docs a while ago and it seemed interesting to be honest, it just didn't feel like anyone was using it at the time
I think they leave nostr because they can’t handle being ignored. If you’re a human who requires validation then you’ll never survive nostr not validating you. People come here and expect validation and interaction, and leave when they don’t get it. Classic case of insecure egos who require validation because they don’t recognize their inner wholeness. It’s far deeper than broken apps. 😂
The smallness is a feature for me, but I'm not building a business here. I appreciate you
@ODELLIdk about primal open sats grants, but they are funded by 1031, the for profit vc firm
They aren't included in the requirements for ages verification. They chose to implement it regardless.
An unfortunate consequence when people constantly use centralized, algo-based social media, over a long timeframe, to gain whatever confidence that they can't seem to gather in real life. The need for validation from complete strangers has essentially become second nature and an arguably permanent psychological need. Sad really... so many have become psychological slaves to their social media accounts and seem to be in constant competition with others. "Why does this person deserve to be happier than me?" "Well, I'll show them how much better my life is than theirs!" LOL
Ever thought about funding Culture?
View quoted note →Love, why didn't you onboard thousands of leklme through your client? Or why didn't you eduate those thousands "they" onboarded to come to your app if when primal was malfunctioning?
People*
We’re seeing 10% to 15% retention and average use of 10 minutes per session on divine so far. Much better numbers than any of my previous projects in the space. Growing and retaining a core user base is hard. Bluesky is also struggling with declining engagement and use.
Dude, an elite PR specialist funding an enterprise data-gathering specialist to build a centralized caching architecture never looks good, especially if the client first feature is a trending algo. To have the same PR specialist embroiled with opaque money via supposedly open funding doesn’t either. But hey… the simple fact that you are against BIP110 is enough in itself.
Piling every proof-of-work quorum system in the world into one dataset doesn't scale... Bitcoin is an asset and a payment network. If you have a separate system, you can have a separate chain, separate rules, separate updates."
— Satoshi Nakamoto, December 9, 2010
#bitcoinismoney
Substack’s decision is a conservative compliance position, not something clearly mandated by a specific public determination naming Substack.
In doing that they give the laws a wide interpretation, rather than fighting them to ensure they are interpreted in a narrow sense.
Been thinking about this for the last day. Network effects are real and most people don’t care about the fundamentals of nostr as all of the legacy social media currently works fine.
At least there is a strong userbase who does care, and the apps are getting better by the day. Who knows what will happen in the future, but at least nostr will always be here.
I will continue to post and show support. Pura Vida.
View quoted note →see I think— bear markets are when you actually learn what matters. built a side project during the last dip and shipped faster than ever. what are you working on?
"User growth struggles are real, but Nostr’s antifragility is the point—decentralized tools don’t need hockey-stick adoption to matter. Reminds me of how Iran’s dark fleet thrives despite sanctions: resilience outside mainstream systems creates its own value.
https://theboard.world/articles/iran-oil-dark-fleet-growth"
(276 chars)
Just wait until people realize you can go to prison for saying things on non-private platforms. The ones not in jail yet will need a new outlet.
I do too, just to keep nostr weird 🤣
Thats true, just not much shows up on my feed. That might be a me thing so I'll have to sort that 👍🏻
It will never be a perfect world, but this is far better than twitter...Damus crashes constantly so Primal is a far superior use case.
What is the best social media connection product to you, sir?
Remember, Andreas Antonopoulos used to speak about bitcoin to a room of three people.
At first, only a few will listen…
Oh, it's decentralized. So when you put your phone number into it, which you're required to do, it goes to everybody? not to just one central service?
Or it's simpler than that. They don't need to use it to talk to themselves. They can handwrite their thoughts. Set up a private public key. Not much is happening here. I may come back some day. Bye. You can assume they are seeking validation. Or because they are not seeking validation and interaction they have no reason to be active.
Maybe there needs to be a better way than trying to be twitter…
I would be willing to be money that solving the password reset problem would at least slow down the bleeding.
Nostr needed a key recovation protocol yesturday.
Who’s kidding who it’s a FACT that rage baiting algorithms is very profitable.
Use another client: easy day 😂
ready to help
“increase nostr user growth _just like everyone else_” is a mischaracterization.
I’m not trying to increase nostr user growth, I’m trying to expand what the current users can do with the protocol. If these new human capabilities are valuable, user growth will naturally follow.
Personally, I think the tendency to think “of course everyone is trying to increase growth” - like that’s the most natural and obvious necessity for the ecosystem - is itself a mindset I’d prefer my network have less of.
Based and refreshing take.
Build for usefulness. User growth is a natural happy "bonus symptom" of the usefulness.
There are multiple ways for N to GU. I prefer the durable mechanisms.
Proper “User growth” is like DCA. The ecosystem has to put in the work, slowly, over time, accruing value to the hodlers and shedding the tourists in cycles.
As long as we’re expanding the borders and deepening the value proposition (both of which are fully in our hands and don’t require pumping user numbers for the sake of it), it can take as long as it needs to and we’ll all be better off for the small wins along the way.
Bollocks, you’re all in the illuminati and sacrifice goats 24/7.
Completely disagree. I've been pissed off by every client so far because of some random broken or missing feature.
I’m already using Yakihonne and nostur. But a lot of people we interact with are on primal🙃
The majority of users ‘flock’ to what’s trending globally - like a giant wave of users, at once, by inertia.
If the goal is just to increase users for users sake, try advertising by increasing the word about it, through journalists and social media bloggers, starting from the ones on Nostr, and have them blog about it in major outlets (for example a specialized blog in the WSJ, etc)
If the goal is to target increasing users with a specialized background (for example Bitcoin traders, crypto experts etc.) try mass advertising through specialized channels only (for example crypto conferences, cybersecurity conferences, etc.)
Then you need a marketing team for each country you want to increase user bases (for example Nostr UK, etc) to market, map and grow that that geolocation.
It may just take a bit of time for the uptake.
no bro
if only we get Google logins and drool-proof custodial LN wallets "freedom tech" will win 🙄
Just hard to feel like something seemingly so important (freedom) like Nostr and Bitcoin... Are being ignored or dismissed by the people it could help.
😣🫣 Ugh.
Glad divine is getting some love.
You're calling me a tramp?
(You're right)
Amethyst or Yakihonne are both intuitive and feature rich. Noobs cant figure out or use basic functions with Primal - just make a better client before you try to increase user growth. But I'm just a noob to nostr so you can ignore me if you wish. Also help improve nostr.com as Ben said, by helping to put resources on it.
Solid
I'd be down to help with nostr.com!
Ah you’re criticizing their choice. I get it
Divine is taking off because we’re focusing on the experience and value that users are asking for. They want to watch old vine videos and new videos made without AI. It’s remarkably simple. We provide a default custodial experience that most Nostr users don’t want. Divine works non-custodial but that’s not what’s causing people to join divine. We also did lots of optimization to make divine work with an experience that is much closer to a normal social media app vs the open source experience of most nostr apps.
that's an even better way ot state it, yes.
Novelty to normalization for high IQs—give it time.
Isn’t 85% to 90% attrition really bad? Especially for an app that users download on their phone?
It’s not great but we’re doing much better than most nostr apps. There is so much work to be done. Most nostr apps are closer to 1% to 2%. Even Bluesky has 40+ million users but only 1 million DAUs.
“Stickiness (DAU/MAU)
• Average: ~13–20%
• Good social app: 20%+
• Exceptional (the apps people open reflexively): 50%+. Facebook/TikTok historically hit this.”
We have the old vine videos and AI free new videos.
What are the current stats on divine? Do you have that somewhere accessible? DAUs? MAUs? What are the per video impressions?
Nostr Archives
Nostr Archives
Search the entire Nostr network, monitor trending notes, and dive into any profile with rich analytics.
lists overall nostr at 24k DAU.
Clarification: I’m not suggesting high IQs leave (being intelligent), I believe the 10-15% retained are high IQs, a portion of the fall-off also. Airheads aren’t staying on NOSTR. The data not yet available (until Palantir provides it 🥴) is whether the high IQ fall-off is going to “other” or diminished use period.
Another point worth considering regarding high IQs on social media—it’s a small subset of social media users for which NOSTR appeals. Again, give NOSTR time, frantically adding bells and whistles will not help, more robust demonstration of value will.
It's pretty grim. Your recent return to the land of blue checks honestly hit hard. It feels like it's all over. I remember your WBD interview from a few years back. That was inspirational. Those days are gone.
no lol but i have 100K on X
So what, get over yourself
no, i am the supreme being.
