Oddbean new post about login | logout No he doesn’t have a point. clients are not centralized by definition. Clients are just code that talk to relays. You can’t censor code/information.
They can show up to the operators house and stick a gun to their head though. Single points of failure.
Operator of what? The client? Users? They are going to stick the gun to the heads of thousands of people and tell them to stop using code and their eyeballs. Not sure i follow
The owner of the client. For example, you, in relation to Damus. Just like they did with Pavel Durov. They'll say, "Will, shut Damus down or we're putting you in a cage". As a client operator, you need to prepare for that. Because eventually, it's a very likely scenario if Nostr takes off. This is a war.
Jailing me would do absolutely nothing. Damus is open source and doesn’t require any supporting infrastructure
How do we test this statement?
You're fucking back!?!?!?!?! Holy shit. I left after you did. Just poking my head in.
Download an APK outside of an AppStore if using android, or access Nostr via web browser. Two fairly easy pleb-accessible options that don’t require Will.
You have services though, no? API's, your Relay, iOS versions. Basically, can the app run forever without maintenance? If not, those fail points will be targeted. Open source is good. If the app can live in a way that even you can't shut it down in any way, you've solved this problem.
We have our purple api but it’s completely optional. Damus works without it. Damus will run after I’m dead and our team dissolves. So yes it can run forever, if something breaks someone can fix it and put a fork on the appstore.
Good. You're building robustly then. On the iOS side, there's still App Store risk. Need good ways to sideload iOS apps without the store. Android is easy. I haven't see many non-jailbreak ways on Apple. Ideas?
You can always use PWA clients if the apps are banned. Is Apple going to ban websites too?
Ya that's a good way. PWA is under-rated. Loses device-based functionality like push notifications though.
Not to mention people can run the servers for those clients at home on something like a start9. You can run your own nostr-rs relay and nostrudel for the client. Is this what dispelling bitcoin fud was like in the early days?
No one is worried about the relays. They're quite decentralized. But you can't really use a relay without a client. Right now there's 3 main ones that work. That's why I raise the centralization point. Open-source and forkable seems to be the most logical key to solving that. Looks like Will is doing that. Good. Will check out Start9, looks interesting. Thx
Relays are important and the Nostr relays are built poorly. Without relays, your clients are nothing. Also, it is important that independent relay operators sync with other relays. Data grows fast on Nostr. Management and spam protection isn't there.
How is there any comparison to a centralized exchange when Damus is just a pass-through for information. They’re not hosting anything for the user, other than simply running a relay which is optional to use. These arguments are getting more retodded by the day.
How can a relay be optional? Nostr is pointless without a relay. Literally nothing
A relay isn't optional, but the one run by the client creator (damus, in this case) is.
Are you guys just dense or what? You don’t need to use the Damus relay to use Damus or any other Nostr client. I disconnected mine to post this note and it’s still visible.
Isn't that what I said?
Sorry, didn’t mean to include you in that. 😅
poor todd
It is a great burden we place on Todd.
You’re missing the point. People interact with a protocol through the app. The app is what they know, what they’re familiar with. They know nothing of the protocol. Because the most popular apps are likely to be accessed through wall gardens that invites control and censorship. Nostr app developers such as yourself already experienced this with the Apple App Store. Nostr does a better job of it compared to Facebook and Twitter, but it’s not immune to the centralising forces of brand, convenience, and network effects.
You do not need an app to access Nostr. An internet browser is sufficient. Or if you have an android based phone you can load an apk yourself uncensorably. People are locked in the iPhone mindset to think the only option is an app from the AppStore, this is not true. There are other options.
