Oddbean new post about login | logout lil rant: am I the only one who thinks that NOSTR sorta gained steam at the wrong time? I know Jack was a big part of the early onboarding back in Q4 2022, but something tells me if it all came together just a bit earlier in the 2021-2022 censorship crisis w/ Jan 6th, trucker protests, etc - NOSTR would be EXPONENTIALLY more complete on a software + UX perspective by now than it actually is today. the use case for the average person is just not that obvious or impactful in an environment that isn't hostile towards free speech, which Twitter/X isn't at the moment. and even if it were to become gradually worse, the benefits of using a centralized platform for free speech (like hosting videos natively) vastly outweighs the difficulty it takes to execute the same speech on this one (maybe I'm shouting into the wind, but I thought it'd be worth posting since I can never delete the thought on NOSTR even if I wanted to, the same way I can't delete the thought from my head 😂)
It's never too late 💜
Dunno. Australia just passed a law that under16 can’t use socials. I think nostr is big enough and almost not too clunky for school kids to embrace it. Could be interesting if they do
I guess my only analog is when people say Bitcoin is/was "a solution in search for a problem" I just don't know if NOSTR is as anti-fragile as Bitcoin in its design from an economics view would love pointers if somebody can really clarify the future economics of NOSTR in a world where the average social media users shares 10+ gigabytes and growing of data per year and they're used to doing it for free
like is the big plan to tie an economic cost to the size of "free speech" somebody wants to share to their network? who on earth wants to calculate that when they want to post a video of their dog catching a frisbee?
Maybe it was not there in that crisis where it could have taken more steam but see it another way. This was not the last attempt to silence people. There will be more. And the important thing is that we'll be ready when that time comes.
will we though? I need to see more stats I guess. I love the ethos of NOSTR but from spending 2 years on it I still feel like I am in a massive group chat with a bunch of amazing people who are likely mostly INTJs. when are we gonna make NOSTR more disagreeable? it's no public square without that
Nostr was around then, but Twitter wasn't censoring the truckers back then and even if they were, there would have been "no one to reach on Nostr". Plus for self organising, there were plenty of group chats on messengers.
I feel the same. Alternative, free speech-friendly platforms like Gab and MeWe grew massively during that era. While Gab is a cesspit, MeWe is doing better than ever (and even doubled down on their privacy philosophy). Nostr could easily have grown a lot faster if it was rising during that time.
As content creators, one is always looking for validation that they're not wasting time The hard part here though is one is not comparing apples with apples Nostr is an entirely different beast, the only true representation of micropayments online, and most likely exponentially more useful for the "other stuff" Ask the early Bitcoiners now using Nostr, and they will tell you how similar this feels to 2011 Bitcoin So just imagine the digital censorship issue a decade from now... It's like one has to be truly low time preference, delay gratification, and just slowly compound their efforts here on Nostr Keep the up the great work!
I think the difference is what you will see from now on. I think x cannot improve more because of regulations but I think Nostr can only grow as a decentralised network. Join Spotify streaming, x, Amazon, money, bank accounts, LinkedIn, markets, etc and custom search algorithm and ai. I understand people want NOSTR to succeed but I think maybe the definition of success might not be what you originally expect. Maybe we don’t dethrone x or make it go away but being an alternative makes a lot of difference I would say
Nostr is the solution in search of problems. It has no backers but passion. It has no investors but those who care. It has no users but those who "get it". It's just a protocol and has no costs but time and energy. It has no expected returns or goals but V4V. It has no rug to be pulled and you could be the last node standing, but you would stand if you cared and had the time. All Nostr demands is your time, care, and energy. You will never get an End of Service shutdown notice. Ever. As it has no time to end, it had no time to launch. Everyday is a new opportunity to launch something great built on it.
