Oddbean new post about login | logout Use relays that offer the service of storing your long form content …
They have no contractual obligation to store it for the long-term. Wheras websites do generally have a contract to store data for the long term. So while delplatorming is lower, freshness is higher, chance of losing content increases. Relays also tend not to stick around alot. I've been rugged by paid relays run by anonymous devs. Each storage mechanism involves trade-offs, one does not replace another.
A server is just a service no different from a professionally managed relay. Just because there hasn’t been a highly reliable paid relay doesn’t mean there can’t be. There will be if nostr scales.
Nostr doesnt scale though in its current form. Its a decent unfunded hobby netowrk, but at 10k daily users, there will not be enough revenue to keep the lights on. Relays are turning off on a daily basis, and you also lose a talented developer too.
What’s the point of this defeatist attitude? If you feel there’s no future why bother? Let the rest of us who see a more positive future do what needs to be done.
Its not defeatist, it's acknowledging the reality of technical trade-offs. Scaling requires work, not wishful thinking. In the 4th year of the web they dropped everything to prioritize a scalaing architecture. It worked. Nostr is in year 4 and has no equivalent scaling architeccture. Relays are not designed as long-term storage, they are designed to relay notes from one user to another. In that regard, it works well. Use the right tool for the right job. Acknlowedge that there are technical trade-offs.
“Relays are not designed…” There’s no reason you couldn’t specialized in storing data for the long haul. If there is demand, services will spring up. We don’t have an architecture scaling problem at the moment, we have demand problem but its not a nostr issue rather than a unique experience issue which can and will be resolved. There’s a lot of value in what nostr provides from censorship perspective, walled garden breakdown and not needing to be responsible for takedowns. I’d say everything is looking up given the “hobbyist” nature of this protocol. If scaling becomes an issue; the market will solve it. I can’t agree with much of anything you’ve said.
Please dont put words in my mouth. I've been around nostr far longer than you and helped put together some of what you see today behind the scenes. It's highly likely that you would not posting here today if it wasnt for unpaid the work I did, and others like me, did. Scaling nostr requires a huge amount of work, and is far from inevitable. Relays are not designed to be storage systems, they are designed to relay notes from one user to another. The clue is in the name.