Oddbean new post about login | logout These kind of responses are so tone deaf it’s not funny. - Zero concept of how networks actually work and grow. - No idea about network or anti-network effects. - Ignores the fact that bitcoin had intensive marketing from the beginning, - AND blind to the fact that bitcoin is a financial network, with a direct financial incentive to participate (something Nostr doesn’t have).
Just forgot about zaps huh?
Zaps are just a substitute for likes. They’re largely meaningless. And they are FAAAAR from an economic model
Zaps are not a substitute for likes. Bitcoin is the economic model, your time, labor, and energy. Provide value, get value. Ask #tunestr of they're meaningless and far from an economic model. It's so early and it's already demonstrably working.
I used to think that too. But look at the behaviour. People pass around “numbers on a screen” which don’t really mean much. There’s no significant net bitcoin entering. It’s mainly the same amount of bitcoin just switching hands amongst the same people. So what’s happening, if we’re being objective, is that people are treating zaps more and more like likes or other reactions. We need to think about this further. It’s far from an economic model like mining
I think monetizing social media is not the right way. The ones who are getting paid for their opinions tend to stick to them to continue getting paid and can't express their true opinions which in return damage their followers. If I'm following you it is because I value your opinions and I would like to know that it is your true opinion without any biases like having profit. When profit involved things get messy. As we all know from history the ones telling the truth are the ones most regarded.
Yeh. Zaps create in some ways a perverted incentive to say what you think you want people to hear. Not what’s actually valuable. A lot we’re not understanding here
I built a relay, so I kind understand the concept of networks...
No you understand the technical component. Not how network effects actually work
I understand network effects man. Why Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft have the upper hand. The network effect is massive to overcome. My argument is nostr does not need marketing to overcome them. All it needs is time. Same as BTC. The network effect of the dollar is the absolute biggest one on the planet. Just like nostr, Bitcoin will not overcome it's network effect for potentially decades.
Yup. Nostr and Bitcoin are singularities with large pull, because on open networks your competition is helping you grow rather than stealing energy from you like a zerosum system. Nostr and Bitcoin are positive sum
Bitcoin has the luxury of time far more than Nostr does. Why? Because fiat money is actively collapsing. The need for bitcoin is stronger, and while it’s a more significant change (money is the base language) it’s got time on its side. Nostr on the hand, if it doesn’t achieve some sort of escape velocity in the next 2-5yrs, is going to be relegated to the fringe because centralised providers are “good enough” for most people, and/or other networks will emerge (see the work TBD is doing for DIDs, and there’s much more). The mistake is to think their paths are equivalent. They’re not. Bitcoin has a century to win. Nostr…a decade or two. Or somewhere thereabouts.
Let me ask you this. If Bitcoin had no marketing at all, would it have failed? The answer is no. You are free to disagree.
Yes it would’ve, because nobody would’ve know about it. Had Silk Road and Wikileaks not existed, or Roger Ver, Voorhees or Antonopolous to evangelise in the early days - bitcoin would’ve disappeared. The very fact that businesses sprouted up, people discussed it, and entire communities of evangelists emerged is what got bitcoin the attention it needed to develop economic mass. There’s no way around effective marketing and messaging.
Those tools existed because there was an organic demand. Silk road didn't market Bitcoin. Bitcoin fulfilled a market need. The people you listed were all altruistic and not really marketing. More like deciples. Too bad some of them fell off the deep end.
I was going to buy your book through geyser btw. I probably still will. I found geyser through nostr. Ya know ... Network effects and all... Marketing can help. I'm not "against" marketing nostr. I simply argue it will not be the differentiating factor in nostrs success.
I appreciate the comment about the book. And I promise it will be the best Sats you’ve ever spent. I’m also glad you’re not against marketing. But my position is that, for every 10,000 we’ll build software products, only a couple really achieve scale - and that’s due to (in some cases luck, but) superior go to market. Cold card is case in point. It’s far superior to Ledger. But ledger outsells it 500:1 Now..this is fine for a general product like that. But network live and die by the density. It’s very easy to lose network density and to get anti-network effects if messaging and go to market unclear. We can have the best product/protocol, but if people don’t know where it “lives” in their minds, it’s all for naught. I recommend Andrew Chen’s work on Network effects btw. His book “the cold start problem” is absolutely fantastic