Skeptical, yes, but I think there is plenty of potential value proposition for many implementations of WoT. However, I would argue that it is still being integrated poorly. This is no fault of WoT devs.

nostr:npub149p5act9a5qm9p47elp8w8h3wpwn2d7s2xecw2ygnrxqp4wgsklq9g722q is who I would call upon for a good counter-argument in general.

I will argue both in favor as well as against WoT because I see things differently, but let it be stated that I am not much of a developer, so my perspective may be skewed.

(Warning, this post is kinda long)

I had never heard of Web of Trust until I found nostr:npub1u5njm6g5h5cpw4wy8xugu62e5s7f6fnysv0sj0z3a8rengt2zqhsxrldq3 on GitHub, and I followed his ideas as best as I could. I basically harassed him to educate me to the best of his abilities about Web of Trust for about one year. At many times his arguments seem very promising but perhaps seemingly short-sighted, though again, I wouldn't place this "burden of proper WoT implementation" on an "amateur WoT dev".

I make these distinctions because I believe in the freedom tech movement as much as the next purple-feathered dingo, and I recognize that nostr:npub1u5njm6g5h5cpw4wy8xugu62e5s7f6fnysv0sj0z3a8rengt2zqhsxrldq3 wasn't much of a developer either until Nostr encouraged him to keep pursuing his idea of WoT. Watching his progress has been even more satisfying than watching my own.

In any case, how this relates to your question- I've been getting to know nostr:npub10npj3gydmv40m70ehemmal6vsdyfl7tewgvz043g54p0x23y0s8qzztl5h and his relay.tools project, and it has me considering what I've thought about Nostr since I got here (~2 years). 

Relays are flexible as proven by many applications.

They can be decidedly ephemeral or attempt to maintain permanence.

What impresses me most is the versatility of Blastr. In my mind there will be various structures to the Nostr network which will continue to take full advantage of Blastr indefinitely. When Nostr says censorship resistance, I say BLASTR is the WAY.

But not everything needs to be Blasted.

So, relay.tools is implementing NIP-42(?) auth which should take care of that and provide ephemeral identities.

At this point in my mind, any instance of relay.tools now has the same "problem" of Nostr.

"What client is going to integrate with this?"

Or, "What does a client with on-demand relays look like?"

And, yeah, that's a tough question, cloud.

I am fully confident in the direction things are heading.

But again, the question. What is WoT for?

I think it's for relays.

I think with relay.tools we will be able to maintain decentralized distribution of relays that SCALE.

And I think it's important that it be done this way.

We will be able to create communities of relays based on endorsements from the administrators and users.

We will be able to replicate entire collections of relays from one domain to the next.

Nostr is a flood and WoT is the wind.

It's the direction we choose. The people we trust. It's a trust metric.

But I don't trust npubs.

I trust heavily endorsed networks of relays, especially when that trust score is heavily procured by my own follow list.

By enabling what I call "operational relays" to exist separately with relaytools, we can manage authority structures locally at the domain level, as well as allow users to migrate from one domain to the next, irregardless of client.

I believe relay.tools is the future API of scalable Nostr relays and Web of Trust will be our way of sorting signal from noise, down to the personal level, inclusive of client and server levels, and always maintaining total decentralization at the client level, thanks to #Nostr.

This is what I see as someone who merely considers themselves a user at this time.

When Listr.lol becomes Logseq.lol we will have a better tool for managing complex, personal lists of user data.

This kind of application is in development. I found someone on here who is building a client for that too. When I suggested collaborative editing, they seemed on board with that too.

The future is fucking BRIGHT king. 

WoT is not the answer, it is merely our way of filtering signal from noise. But it starts at the relay level.

Prove me right or wrong but I hope all of you are aware of how awesome you are. 🍯