Oddbean

Some valid criticism of Nostr is all it takes to get people to show their true colours. People who aren’t interested in freedom or helping spread the message. Just interested in making an exclusive club so they can mock others. Pathetic.

Why do you think he’s not interested in freedom? Have you spent any time on nostr? Or, read any of his notes? As far as helping people, he’s been one of the most generous people with his time.

I haven’t spent as much time or contributed as much. But if we’re going to stereotype “normies” and act like a super exclusive club then that is the opposite of freedom. You can still be helpful while also not being welcoming

You need to read the thread. Why are you so hung up on the term “normie”? As humans we use language to categorize things to make them easier to understand. I’m a normie, by some people’s definition. There’s no exclusion or intention to separate people into a group for any other purpose than to communicate about a certain group of individuals.

I have the read the thread and it was insightful! Just because I may disagree with you doesn’t mean I can’t agree on some things. Let’s face it, there has been a lot of notes over the last 24 hours ripping into “normies”. Even if your definition of “normie” is fine the underlying understanding for people scrolling their feed is “us against them”. Nostr isn’t meant for everyone, it doesn’t fit all use cases. But when someone raises a valid criticism that onboarding to Nostr services is confusing then we should accept that. I read HN a lot, there are definitely people that are a pain in the arse on there though.

Really sad. This would’ve been better discussed in a community maybe where the whole context of this nearly year long argument could’ve been referenced or the people involved would’ve known it. I’ll take responsibility for that part anyways. But I’m not retracting my statement in its original context: We should not be worried about recruiting non-privacy/freedom people onto Nostr. Those are my “normies.” This is not the platform for them, and the value proposition of Nostr (which is high and why I’m here) does not resonate with them at all. Those people will be plenty motivated to learn how it all works when they’re persecuted for the first time on a MSM site. *THEN* we should be on fire to help and support them in that learning. Nostr should not experience exponential growth by appealing to the non-pilled. I even wrote an article on this. ( https://blog.thesamecat.io/exponential-growth-is-cancer/ ) It should be building the best tools for those who are already pilled and focus almost solely on them. There are enough people on Nostr who are not devs to make sure the learning materials are there. That’s their role. We all have one. This was a cart and horse conversation that’s been ongoing for a long time. My stance is we should absolutely not be appealing to these people because they are not ready, nor are they motivated. For those who become so, we should be ready.

I apologise for my overly strong, negative notes as well. I have nothing to disagree with on what you just said. Let me restate clearly what my issues are: 1. If you are going to share your Nostr service in a non-Nostr place you need to anticipate user needs. They need signposting on how to onboard. 2. Using phrases like “normies” (even if your definition is valid) is not helpful. It fosters an “us vs them” attitude that is not welcoming to those that join. I see and appreciate all that you’ve done for the Nostr community in the past. I’m sorry that I’ve been rude, I have my stances and you have yours but we also have common ground. I hope we can discuss and grow in better faith.

That is amenable to me. We can certainly disagree on the use of labels, and I can even try to not use them in threads with you. Hell I’ll even give some thought to my own use of it. HN’s criticism was never my issue. Much of it is correct. My issue is why we keep putting this stuff online as a viable alternative to other services, when it is absolutely not viable for most people at this point. It feels like we are lying to ourselves and doing them a disservice. Nostr is not friendly to the non-freedom/technical minded. A motive is needed, and we don’t provide the value prop they are seeking *yet*. Because they aren’t seeking the right ones *yet*. Hope that clarifies.

I’m not trying to be the phrase police, certainly use it if you feel it’s appropriate. I was expressing frustration at the term. I absolutely agree with what you’re saying about carbon copying services. This is an opportunity to break the mould and change how things are done online.

In my humble opinion I think #nostr is for everyone and fact that most of the active users are from #Bitcoin community and possessed with freedom is affecting diversity of the content available I am surprised that more independent thinkers and canceled journalists haven’t found Nostr but I guess they do not have audience here so it’s a bit of a challenge

Matt Tabbi tried. Just not enough of an audience yet. I was excited he was here are sent some decent zaps. Many did. Hard to do scale. I also think Nostr is for everyone. My view is that people need to change for Nostr, not the other way around though. They need to learn to value their freedoms. They need to learn how easily those are taken. Basically, they need to be awake to reality. We *should* build good software, and offer good services, but the biggest turn off to Nostr for a lot of people are the things that make Nostr Nostr. We can’t (and shouldn’t) fix or ice over those things. We shouldn’t pitch as being as “good as” or a “alternative to” MSM services. We’re not. We’re something different, right? We’re *better* than YouTube or Twitter. But we’re also harder to use and require learning new things. Nostr is not an alternative, it’s a new paradigm.

Sure but people can change here also. Bitcoin and Nostr are great tools for change - we all know how deep the rabbit hole is People will come for content that interests them and when they come they will have an option to learn more about other stuff Not everyone is focused on freedom and privacy - many are just obeying citizen who do not have any idea about the lack freedom and privacy out there

I think learning was the simple point Huw was making, no? How do people learn? By reading/being educated (and of course by being burnt by the old ways to force a mindset change). Learning usually translates into easy to understand plain English content (alongside word of mouth) which could be included during the onboarding process of a nostr client/app. (Maybe why @fiatjaf was calling for nostr diagram submissions?). You’re not changing nostr, just using an opportunity to educate/explain and facilitate self-learning and understanding of Nostr (thereby reinforcing their purple pilling). Obviously, content about the nostr protocol is growing across the board anyway so perhaps it’s not so important now (but surely every opportunity should be exploited to spread the word). Speaking of which, one that needs improving is the Wikipedia entry for the nostr protocol. It’s pants! Yes, Wikipedia is often viewed with disdain but I’m sure a lot of “newbie/normie/plebs” use it as a starting point. (I’m going to look into that).

Nostr does need valid and constructive criticism. I hadn’t personally looked at Flare until now but I think the criticism is valid. We definitely do need better onboarding than just “Login with Nsec or extension” as most people will look at that and just turn away. There needs to be at the very least some basic explanation of what Nostr is and how to create an Nsec. I think it would be preferable to have some sort of guided process to install & set up an extension to manage the Nsec but they aren’t exactly user friendly at the moment either.

Yep, there’s a big gap in onboarding currently. But to be positive about it, Nostr has come a heck of a long way in a short space of time. But for it to progress it needs to be criticised and develop

Agree. It has been just over a year since I first joined and back then there were almost no guides on how to onboard, apps were buggy and had very limited functionality, relays were unreliable etc. We have come a very long way in that time!

You’re right, there’s loads out there for people to lookup. My issue is this: If you advertise your Nostr backed service in a space that is primarily for non-Nostr users. Your login page needs to signpost to this ream of info.

Yes if they’re curious they can just look stuff up. But if you present your work to someone and it has a different pattern of authentication there should at least be a hyperlink to nostr.com. That phrase isn’t actually from the Bible and is fairly contrary to its teaching! I get the sentiment though

You ate the man! I could come up with some different examples where you certainly expect others to do their job without actually understand it, but I won’t cause you are cool :) However this is not the world I personally want to live in. I want everyone to be able to focus on what they have passion to, get real experts in that area and help others with that. And some tools to help figure out who you have better chances to trust to. I don’t want to live in the world where everyone must know how to get sparks off of the stones and hunt a rabbit for a full day in order to not starve, I want humanity to maintain their progress :)

Thats a cool story indeed!:) I want to help people in areas I like and feel comfortable. In the same way i don’t want to give a fuck how my bathroom is built and if anything happens there I want to have a way to immediately find a person who is great at fixing bathrooms and have a way to be more or less sure that I won’t be completely fooled And I believe the same goes for people outside of software development - perhaps there are dentists who focus on helping people with their teeth instead of figuring out what is phishing and where is the distinction between a coop meme and genocide misinformation