Oddbean

Well, I was just shit posting in a cute way lol 🫣 because I love NOSTR. But, I suppose I should back up my words if asked. I would say decentralization fundamentally revolves around control, architecture, and governance. Real Decentralization - Distributed Infrastructure - Interoperable Standards - User Ownership - Resilience Against Censorship Illusion of Decentralization - Federated but Centralized Governance - Control Over Critical Infrastructure - Opaque Decision-Making - Dependence on Proprietary Systems As far as I know Bluesky does use the federated AT Protocol, which is a step toward decentralization because it avoids a single point of control. However, federation alone doesn’t guarantee full decentralization. In Bluesky’s case, while servers can operate independently, the protocol and its governance are still managed by Bluesky PBC (Public Benefit Corporation). I would say this means that while the AT Protocol provides a decentralized framework, the reliance on a central governing body places Bluesky somewhere between partial and full decentralization. Real decentralization is about giving users full autonomy over their data, identities, and the underlying infrastructure, eliminating points of centralized control. The illusion of decentralization occurs when platforms appear decentralized but still retain centralized governance or critical control mechanisms. Platforms like Nostr align more closely with true decentralization, while Bluesky’s federated model still has centralized elements to address before it can fully achieve that vision.

These are thoughtful points, but I'd suggest focusing on "verify, not trust." Nostr governance is highly centralized—one person has overriding control, often contrary to community sentiment ("It's my project, I can do what I want"). This has driven most grassroots contributors away, leaving a small but dedicated group, including great folks like Alex. Meanwhile, Bluesky's interoperable standards outpace Nostr's, though neither is perfect. Nostr's stagnation (e.g., no markdown, editing, or smart widgets) and resistance to scaling innovations have stifled growth. Nostr absolutely does not have opaque decision making. It has a centralized king-maker effect with very caustic people at the top. Developers are told, "This is dumb", "This is stupid", "We dont need this", "We dont need relays", and even "Go back to where you came from". Overt and blatant racism is tolerated. 90%-95% of the grass roots have left, but thankfully Jack's amazing generosity keeps much of the project going. Onboarding is another weakness—while Nostr champions user ownership, the steep learning curve drives users to easier alternatives like Bluesky, Mastodon, or Threads. Transitional tools like subkeys or delegation could help but remain unaddressed. Decision-making isn’t opaque—it’s centralized and often dismissive, with a "king-maker" dynamic that's alienating to developers. Still, Nostr thrives on Jack’s support, powering good projects like Ditto and Chachi Chat. But sustainability remains a challenge, and much of the development feels grant-driven rather than user-focused. The points you make a are great ones—just temper trust with verification. I've been here from the beginning, contributed heavily, and taken heat for pointing out issues. There's value in Nostr, but its slogans often need scrutiny.

I feel like you spend more time complaining about nostr than contributing anything of value. What are you doing to improve these weaknesses? Some of us are very much aware of these issues and are grinding away to improve them. The governance issue is so dumb, there is no governance. Theres a few devs who have control of the nips repo. Guess what! You can ignore the nips repo, i left it a long time ago and have started to spec things on our own. People who find our specs useful can implement them (image metadata, private zaps, quote highlights). All rejected from the nips repo but *gasp* they still exist and people implement them. Not sure why i waste my time with complainers, but i am going to stop wasting my time now. ✌️