Oddbean

Yo 🤙 I appreciate the explanation! I’d imagine that nostr relays offer the “whack a mole” redundancy that would make it easier to circumvent attempted censorship, or is it that the entire network can be “blocked” in a higher level way? I knew that Damus was kicked out of China and that nostr was added to the naughty list there, but didn’t realize there was a way to actually suppress the content across the board (vs bluesky which I’d imagine is easier because it’s centralized) There’s sort of a question in there but I haven’t had enough coffee to articulate it fully

Nostr kind of centralized around a handful of key relays. If those ‘moles’ get whacked, the system might not fully recover, especially since most of the smaller, long-tail relays have moved on. If the long-tail had been supported, it would be a different story. So yeah, taking out a few big relays would actually be quite effective right now. That said, moles only get whacked when they grow large enough or start causing problems. At the moment, Nostr is still relatively small and not really causing major headaches, though I’m sure it’s on the radar of various deep states. The big advantage Nostr offers is that if one admin cancels you, you’re not starting over from scratch. It’s more like a shadow ban than a full ban. Your identity and content persist—it’s just about finding another relay. That said, Nostr is a solid system with a lot of potential. There’s a bit of a catch-22, though: right now, it’s heavily subsidized and not sustainable. For it to become sustainable, it would need significant growth, but growth would make it a bigger target. So for now, it’s more of an R&D niche, not really threatening anyone.

Thanks Melvin, this is a very thorough explanation. I guess it’s safe to say that while we’re still small, there’s time for multiple smaller relays to develop and grow, and create additional redundancies for censorship resistance. It’s early and very exciting to be a part of this 🔥