Oddbean

I'm not saying your work is a wasted effort, bcs right at the beginning of the paragraph that you're citing, I say 'naturally through friends' - that's exactly the best way to onboard someone and pass some trust you have to them. I watched your video, looks great and I fully support your effort. All I'm saying is that if someone has NO friends on nostr and joins nostr then they're indistinguishable from a bot. In fact, on Nostr they're much more likely to be a bot bcs it's an open network. And if they have to prove they're worthy of trust/attention by organic interaction then it will be hard bcs bots will be much more productive and persistent in attempts to gain trust by liking/commenting etc. For such people with no friends, doing PoW or paying fees seem like the only options to outpace bots.

> “if someone has NO friends on nostr and joins nostr then they're indistinguishable from a bot. In fact, on Nostr they're much more likely to be a bot bcs it's an open network.” @brugeman The challenge of rapidly on-ramping HUMAN users into a their own web-of-trust is an existential threat AND unique opportunity for Nostr. Because Nostr is out in the open, without the protective walls of centralized trust allocation, organic trust between humans is the ONE WAY that Nostr will avoid (the image of) being “overrun” by bots and bad actors. They will come in large numbers. Our only hope is to establish tools for decentralized trust that keep humans out of their reach, without being isolated from each other. This has never been done before. All bets are on the table. But my bets are on leveraging IRL relationships to onboard “word of mouth” new users to trusted networks. This is why: https://nostrmeet.me