It's not just your relay. It's a thing. Have a good look at the stats. Nostr adoption, engagement, and retention are all quite low and have declined significantly from the major adoption spikes. The users that joined after X was banned in Brazil and other events before that like the Reddit and TikTok spikes over mostly did not stay or regularly engage. There are only ~36,000 weekly active users on Nostr right now, and less than 15,000 daily active users.
https://stats.nostr.band/
+1. Lots of reasons users dont stick around.
Developers think they know everything.
“Let’s make another shitty ecash thing” 😂
That is also the reason the last innovation in hardware wallets was the introduction of a screen
I think there should be screens on FIDO keys. Just for a bit of extra trust on top of the host device.
💯 Always survey the users, regularly gather feedback, and take action on it. Just because the devs think it's cool doesn't mean people actually want it or will use it or find it worth paying for.
Hear me out.
Influencers get people to donate to some “charity”.
People those influencers know make shitty projects.
That “charity” gives them grants and does not disclose the amount.
Sounds good?
We can call it opengrants!
Let’s also emphasize it is Bitcoin related just in case
Even better if said charity can also shill their own products.
Let’s put the influencers on the board also. And also one with a stake in selling their own overpriced but kinda shit HWWs.
The difference between what a dev thinks is cool and what a user thinks is cool is... a GUI. And simplicity.
It's a difference in priorities.
Dev wants to come up with some cool new thing every day, so that his buddies cheer him on, but the user can't get the GUI to allow them to login or see the entries in their thread, or their feed is boring as heck, so they just give up and walk off.
Lots of cool projects die because they refuse to follow-through cleanly on anything and just get stuck in Perpetual Prototype Purgatory.
> Perpetual Prototype Purgatory
Haha damn, that sets the vibe alright 😳
at some point they'll get hit by reality that what they think is cool will not pay their bills. Until they understand the marketability — supply vs demand then their work will go to trash.
I've struggled to figure out what I can do on Nostr. What's needed is simplicity and connections to other things than my client. If you're not in the developed bubble, the options are opaque. And the relay model is currently implemented so badly, it might as well not exist. I love the idea, but its not usable without a considerable time investment. That's just not going to work for people. That includes me - I'll probably leave soon if it doesn't get easier and more transparent.
I’ve noticed this drop off in engagement over time myself too. Partly I probably haven’t been posting anything very interesting recently and I know I haven’t been engaging myself as much as I used to (in part due to time with a lot going on at work etc). I’ve recently deleted X from my phone and removed myself from some Telegram groups etc that were distractions and not making me happy anyway so I think I’ll try to focus more on Nostr again!
We're gonna fix this with algorithms
I'm bullish on the algorithms. They are making me notice my #nostr bubble.
smart vs dummies
linux vs windows
nostr vs fb/x/tiktok
15000 active punters is enough to know for now - rest monkeys can do dance in tiktok n fb
it would/will be interesting to discover if this is what organic adoption looks like without algorithms to feed the “endless scroll”
Oddbean new post about login | logout 
