Oddbean new post about login | logout I see #Alby is trying to force people into paying for hosting for Ably Hub by cutting off their hosted wallet service. Understandable. They have nothing to lose by throwing everyone under the bus. It's not like they'll lose any money over it (their hosted service was free). I mean, what are the users going to do? Get mad that they can't use a free service anymore? Complain about it on social media? Doesn't matter to Alby's bottom line.
I'll just be zapping from Strike when Alby cuts me off. Going to the trouble of self-custodying the small amount of sats you zap with is retarded.
Oh, it gets better, they won't let you withdraw all your money. They are keeping 1% of everyone's money who tries to withdraw and 100% of everyone's money who doesn't (and they'll get a coupon in return) https://image.nostr.build/dc1803caa55211a781d572669204682832652b26ae5adcf4258c897360baebf8.jpg
And when you try to transfer 99% of your wallet, or even less than that, it also fails saying you need to keep 1% around for fees. Way to burn the reputation you've been earning over the years. I'm sad so see things go down this way.
Apparently you can get 94% out, but now I've tried too many times and they won't let me send money out. Guess I'll try again later. 🤡🌎
To be fair, this move could be seen from a mile away.
I wanted to believe. They spent so much time helping out people on nostr when they had trouble, keeping servers online, building self-custody solutions. I thought they were a group of cool cats, doing what they loved, building the technology of future. I didn't think they'd pivot to acting like a VC firm.
That is how they get you. Sorry if it is causing you hardship.
The 1% hold is pretty standard across all custodials. Withdraw 99%. then withdraw 99% etc till you get down to 2 sats
What's the best alternative wallet these days?
I saw minibits suggested. I'm trying out coinos. Now sure what else is out there for receiving zaps. Zeus is another option for sending, but I've had problems with that lately. When it works, you can receive as long as you have the app open at the time someone's trying to send to you.
Having the app open to receive? Lol. That UX will never catch on. Insane.
It's fine for if you are making payments in person. If you have your own lightning node, Zeus can connect to that, and you can receive without the app open. But Zeus's real strengths are that 1. it doesn't need any other infrastructure and therefore 2. you don't depend on anyone else to move your money Maybe Zeus users will have some hosted wallet (coinos, minibits, etc.) to receive money and if it gets too much money in it, they'll move ot over to Zeus. Get the best of both worlds and mininize risk.
Update: nostr:nprofile1qqsrf5h4ya83jk8u6t9jgc76h6kalz3plp9vusjpm2ygqgalqhxgp9gpz4mhxue69uhk2er9dchxummnw3ezumrpdejqzyrhwden5te0dehhxarj9ekxzmnyqyt8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehgu3wvfskueq555fk2 seems to be working for me now, at least for sub 1K values. 🎉 Their suggestions from the other day didn't help at the time, and I still have 10,000+ zombie channels, but it's working now so 🤷. I'm just glad I didn't have to close channels to get my money back.
We recommend users to move over to Alby Hub which is available for free or as paid version if you prefer more convenience. You can keep your Alby account. We'll publish more information about what users can do now. The Alby Extension will remain and there will be a way to use it for all things Nostr.
