Oddbean new post about login | logout I really don't get the people that complain that they don't get followers on Nostr because there is no algorithm. I never got any followers in any of these platforms with algorithms (even though I used them actively for years), except when by some unexplicable hit of luck some people started using @lntxbot on Telegram and by word-of-mouth it got to Alex Bosworth and he mentioned it on tweet and then my follower count slowly grew from 50 to like 5000 over a 3-year period. Is there a magic trick that allows you to go from 0 to 100000 by gaming the algorithm these days and then scam your followers a high-ticket course about how to get followers and become a millionaire? Or what are these people talking about? Why do they even want followers in the first place?
folks want to convert followers into leads into profit it's also why a lot of the folks aren't willing to leave X behind, due to the conversions they get on there
You didn't even read my note.
lack of algorithm wouldn't be a problem if indexation, categorisation and discovery of content was better
Are these things good on x.com? Give an example.
It’s not worth selling your soul to them..
true
Same. Funny enough, I actually get far more productive engagement here on Nostr. I suspect this is the case because I have spent time curating my associations, found a client that works for me, and actually interact with people. The other platforms feel so dead, even though there are lots of follows involved.
People do not understand what algorithms are. I don't understand in full what they are but I do know I can pay to get followers, likes , comment engagement etc. Maybe I should start selling nostr algo boost bot services 😀 that might convince some people to stay because they will finally get the algo they want. .
I feel like wanting followers comes from a need of validation. I noticed most people’s basic needs for a full life haven’t been met so they go online hoping to find it… even if it’s not real or is actually meaningless. I think we’ve tricked ourselves into believing the more followers- the more popular-the more valuable I am, the more respect I’ll receive. Unfortunately it results in a culture of clout chasing and personality shifting.
I agree
Well, on most of these platforms (and also on Nostr's basic use case) what you're not talking to anyone, you're just shouting alone, so I think it's very natural to want someone to listen to your shouts. If you were talking to a smaller group about shared interests then you wouldn't care about followers.
Curiously, I have more followers here than I had on Twitter (deleted the account years ago). And I was there for more time than I here...
The last sentence! 👏👏👏. I can understand wanting followers for businesses, news or accounts that give updates. Or perhaps an account that motivates or encourages someone. But for the average person, I don’t see why they *want* followers. If you get them, fine. But people were actually paying for followers at one point. It’s wild.
just posting content I like or create. Followers are good when they like-comment-find "value" in your posts (which is a basic human need for communication). Of course zaps are also a thing here 🤗
Followers are a numerical representation of their worth as a person. I'd be fine with it just getting removed from the client. I suspect about 99% of mine are bots anyway.
I don't get followers on anything. I think it's me. Shrug.
Your last notes are 2 mins ago, 5 days and 1 month … You’d have to be a lot more active to get noticed.
I followed you
I don't crave followers -its flattering yet not needed. It's nostr so no need to follow unfollow to read whatever i choose. I do want to read loads of (not spam) handles to learn stuff.
Why do people care about a following? Validation?
Money instead I would assume
but money is not guareteed. but ok
I couldn't say. As a not heavy social media user, I am clueless in regard to monetization.
I do understand your point
I mean that social media platforms pay for engagement. I believe some people may care about this payment instead of being simply seeking validation. How the payment works, is something I do not understand.
yea i think most users know that this is an attention economy and are trying their best to make easy money while also putting in the least amount of effort. platforms are giving out such low payrates so the follower count is usually not enough, people try to branch out with their 15mins of fame. making shitty products, starting podcasts without experience etc. chasing stardom without any interesting qualities. i had a few friends that would buy bot followers to inflate their followings just to build their egos. strange world we live in
Excellent point mentioning attention economy and easy money. It is possibly attracting people that are simply looking to get by and sharing whatever without any knowledge-based grounding. It steals from us the most precious commodity of all, time. Time that indeed could have being used to consume information but from reputable sources, those from real experts with experience and those from builders that are knee-deep in their respective fields. Just by writting this I am questioning the value of the information I am getting based on the medium I am extracting it from.
they don't get followers because they don't post anything consistently for any length of time. they don't post anything for any length of time, because they don’t have anything really meaningful or helpful to say themselves. They view other human beings as “followers”, because they are a soft generation of giant babies, stuck in a high chair crying for their pudding.
@atyh @fiatjaf This is probably true but it doesn't get at the heart of the problem. Getting followers on NOSTR (and most alt tech networks) is easy. Having the conversations you actually want to have is a different story.
There is no problem. Just retards.
@atyh @fiatjaf Everyone being too retarded to talk about anything other than NOSTR and Bitcoin is a problem.
You're not a new account... Are you? I feel like you must be an Old Head lol. I think there is a bit of slight sidestepping or 'not getting at the heart of the problem' as you put it. The same with when people say in reply to not finding content and they say 'just follow more people' or imply they're lazy without an algo to feed them. This mostly solves nothing but brings you more of the same, you can try to find it all you can but there are many many topics / content which just aren't here, nor meaningful conversations around them. It's not really a user error as implied but some answers.
@7fqx @atyh @fiatjaf I've been here for a while, I just leave for a few months at a time bc I get so bored. It's not as bad as it used to be tbh, but not bc new people are coming in. It's just that the people who were here aren't in the honeymoon phase with their new toy anymore.
Ah but this is a new npub. Did used to follow your previous one(s)? 🤔
@7fqx I don't recognize you so Idk. If you're with the bunch that found NOSTR through Pleroma then probably.
Fair enough. I didn't find nostr through plemora. Not sure I know that bunch are either. Doesn't matter tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ya but, can you see how high this high chair?
It’s better to think about ‘followers’ like if you wanted to make new friends. You actually have to go out and do things, or make things for them, tell stories to them, basically provide value. Then you have to listen to them, consider them and comment on all the things they are doing. Algorithms suck life and are fake. Nostr is real and shows social proof-of-work to those who have provided value.
Followers are neither vitally important, nor something you can just automatically expect. But they still matter. I've often used this and similar microblogging just as a kind of notepad, writing down ideas and info/evidence for something I'm working on, meaning it does have some *small* value even when no-one reads it. But even that rather unexciting way of using these platforms benefits tremendously from interaction with an audience, even a small one. Enhancing discovery of accounts you might enjoy interacting with is pretty obviously... good? nostr:nevent1qqsqqqpydfksy9n6t6ftm2y6gfse5hej9jcku9xt4mhsrxwfk00wffqpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejsygpm7rrrljungc6q0tuh5hj7ue863q73qlheu4vywtzwhx42a7j9n5psgqqqqqqs40smll
Im on nostr bcs im a stupod bitch ass idealist. Fuck pragmatism. Long life to the ideal world. (I dont know what im writing here sorry 😐)
They want followers because they are often a metric for profits, and they need it fast, without waiting for a natural word-of-mouth dynamic, which is more valuable in the long run, but slow (and also more selective). In this context, a cheatable algorithm (buying followers/interactions/ads/bluecheks) is palatable. The other lever is ego.
Me too 🤣 .. you can get followers only if you did some real work .. just writing cozy notes can't get you followers. Those numbers - they are just bystanders - not followers ! Go build something if you crave for followers - but trust me - you are in happier place without them !
The real metric is #zaps .. platforms try to confuse the users with other metrics cuz they don't have value measurements .. #nostr has ..
Thats the reason I suggest #nostr should only provide zaps as the sole measure for active presence of a user And total numbers of zaps transacted as the sole metric for the protocol performance..
To answer his question, just based off of observation: the one way to "beat" the algorithm is through activity. I follow some accounts that have gone from zero to huge without offline celebrity influence, and they all seem to have one thing in common: constant, frequent posting. 10-20 a day, every day. That isn't my game, and I don't care. Post what you want, when you want, and if people like it, cool. If they don't respond, cool. If they criticize, hey: that's the nature of bringing anything you create into the world. I've moved away from a "larger audience" because again, I don't care about that. I care about the decentralized nature of Nostr and, hopefully one day (but not holding my breath), Bluesky. Social media in general reinforces one of the big no-nos when it comes to creative output: you do it for yourself, not for some perceived audience or, in this context, clout gained through fake Internet points. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqwlsccluhy6xxsr6l9a9uhhxf75g85g8a709tprjcn4e42h053vaqqsqqqpydfksy9n6t6ftm2y6gfse5hej9jcku9xt4mhsrxwfk00wffqedzzh2
Another perspective: who is an anti social in real life and is pretty much fine with it instead of craving for connection?
Only people who have enough connection and are just acting kinda unappreciative of it (but maybe to protect loved ones from being noticed by The Machine we live under now)
Remember the famous "follow for follow"? I think they are trying to do the same here, but #nostr all about providing value. That's how I see it. If one is not providing value, then what's the point to follow? To see what exactly? No notes? 🤔
On Nostr I never sought followers but desperately sought good people to follow. Maybe people should worry about that mainly. nostr:nevent1qqsqqqpydfksy9n6t6ftm2y6gfse5hej9jcku9xt4mhsrxwfk00wffqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygpm7rrrljungc6q0tuh5hj7ue863q73qlheu4vywtzwhx42a7j9n5psgqqqqqqs8gj7qj
Produce consistent high-quality content and the followers will eventually show up. Low-Time Preference people will understand this. You deserve the followers you get. Both in number and quality. nostr:nevent1qqsqqqpydfksy9n6t6ftm2y6gfse5hej9jcku9xt4mhsrxwfk00wffqpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucnfw33k76twv4ezuum0vd5kzmp0qgsrhuxx8l9ex335q7he0f09aej04zpazpl0ne2cgukyawd24mayt8grqsqqqqqpyagz2t
Follow appears broken on primal.net web app. Trying this on Safari browser and it just will not click to Follow.
Sometimes a high follower count can increase opportunities for sponsorship, book deals, job opportunities, etc. When I published my book, the agent looked at all my social media accounts. My follower count was low, but they felt it was real engagement and gave me a chance.
> Is there a magic trick that allows you to go from 0 to 100000 by gaming the algorithm these days and then scam your followers a high-ticket course about how to get followers and become a millionaire? YES. THIS IS WHAT X HAS BECOME. THE RESULT OF AN ADVERTISER FUNDED ADDICTION FUELED SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM MODEL. NOSTR FIXES THIS.
damn skippy. it's utter nonsense. feels great to be X free! 9 months now.
I don't have a trick for that!
I think it also has to do with the fact that you don’t know anybody (personally) on Nostr, because they are still all on the legacy social media, which in my head kinda equates to going to parties with total strangers on your own. It’s a little awkward and hard work to make friends. Then again, for now, I think Nostr is more or less in a “follow the celebs who’s thoughts you enjoy” state, and not much “plebs following plebs” yet, and that’s ok. We’ll get there eventually, I think, but for now it’s still mainly “famous” people spewing notes and us reacting to them.. which begs the question.. why on earth am I writing this in the first place? 🤷🏼
You are definitely using Nostr in a different way than I do
And thats ok! You can use it any way you want. That’s the beauty, isn’t it? I have no interest in becoming popular or a thought leader or whatever. I’m here because after 2 decades of waiting, I can finally make the occasional snide remark below a popular post without leaking all my personal shit to advertising companies!
I mean I’ve gained 168 followers in less than a week here. I had 65 on my X account that was 4 months old
🎉
Those who complain about not gaining followers on #Nostr due to the absence of an algo may be seeking external validation and recognition, as #socialmedia platforms can sometimes exacerbate feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Building a genuine and engaged community takes time, effort, and a low time preference. It requires #PoW to post valuable content, engage in meaningful conversations, and nurture a following. Ultimately, it's more rewarding than chasing after a large but disengaged following via an algo. You don’t get it, because they don’t get it! "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." — Mahatma Gandhi #quotestr
I definitely want more followers. Please follow, thanks. I'll also take all of fiatjaf's followers, as an act of charity. Is there a NIP for follower-transfer?
I can vouch for this user as a better person to follow than myself
The algorithm is created by each user
Social validation and attention have been the new currency for over a decade, I think many of us came here to hopefully bring change to that by creating our own algorithms and networking with people like us as individuals vs a collective (although the nostr spirit/culture is definitely a boon to social). nostr:note1qqqzg6ndqgt85h5jhk5f5snpnf0nyt93dc2vhth0qxvunv77ujjqnnktua
Is there any magic trick to answering the confusion of nostr-devs 🤓to answering algo with algorithm, to facing fact bluesky get 2 mill users, to convince to stay weird🤤
Is there any chance to implement something like AT Procotol and let the user choose his algorithm? https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto
I think nostr's equivalent is DVMs - Data Vending Machines? Never got them to work personally, don't really know Primal also has a pretty good selection of different feeds, not as intricate as Bluesky's though
Yes, we just need to become a centralized cesspool first.
😆😂🫠
My nostr account has been here since April with about 2,000 posts, and already more followers here than the X account I've had for 11 years that also has about 2,000 posts. Still only 90 followers though. Haven't seen any engagement with my recent posts about critically important shit, regardless of whether using X or nostr.
I gamed the tiktok algorithm to get 100,000 followers and then I started selling a $1 course to create scholarships but it failed because people literally want to be grifted and hate you for trying to do the right thing....... so now I'm on nostr and use the edtech platform to introduce people to a better internet. ~100-200 followers on nostr, but it feels better because it feels like the internet instead of constant promotions & commercials
Man it's the opposite in most cases from my experience, I never got any attention on X or Instagram when I was there, I had like 2200 follows on X and nobody ever replied to me at all or cared I was even there. When I left X nobody missed me, I left Nostr for just like a week once and when I came back I saw people asking where I was and happy I was back, do you think you'd get this anywhere else? Heck no. And I only have half the follows here I had on X, most of them were bots. nostr:nevent1qqsqqqpydfksy9n6t6ftm2y6gfse5hej9jcku9xt4mhsrxwfk00wffqpzfmhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6tczyqalp33lewf5vdq847t6te0wvnags0gs0mu72kz8938tn24wlfze6qcyqqqqqqg9hc92a
i come at this from the other side of the horseshoe. i don’t really care about getting followers, but i think it can be markedly harder to find interesting people (to me) on here compared to other platforms. i usually come across new people on here when they interact with my friends/web-of-trust, but on other platforms it might be from the algo or they reply with something interesting to someone i don’t even follow, which would happen much more often.
very wise and valid question. some people think that having followers mean relevance. a validation of their existence and to some it is an excuse to be mean to others as if it is an entitlement of greatness. we all seek validation but to a varying degree. some people take it too far and it become their identity. on a positive note, those who never seek one would inevitably attract more followers. not because they constantly seek for it but because people want some of that humility or attract to the values or vision you believe in. either way, it is human nature! thank you for sharing your genius with us @fiatjaf ❤️🫰
i even blocked all followers on twitter
As to "Why do they even want followers in the first place?" Why post on social media at all, if you can talk to the wall in your room instead?
Time to unlearn algorithm stuff. Nostr is not a matrix where you want to move upwards in the hierarchy. nostr = Your tribes/communities
Meaningful content and dialogue first, the followers come later. If people are worried about their followers, have they missed the mark?
Proof of work > Proof of followers
if you mean bots with "followers" then yeah, you can grow faster on algo-X by using the tags triggering the scam and spam bots. They don't get followers on nostr because on THE NOSTR there is real people who desire real content and most of us are tired of the crypto/Bitcoin influencers preaching decentralisation on centralised platforms only to bitch about censorship on said centralised platforms when monetarisation gets cut off when their channels get censored or deleted. I think the word for them is hypocrites.
Hypocrites preaching decentralisation on centralised platforms only to bitch about their monetarisation getting cut off when their centralised accounts get phantom censored or their YT channels deleted. For all I care they can stay where they are. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqwlsccluhy6xxsr6l9a9uhhxf75g85g8a709tprjcn4e42h053vaqqsqqqpydfksy9n6t6ftm2y6gfse5hej9jcku9xt4mhsrxwfk00wffqedzzh2
Most platforms won’t let you do certain things unless you have a minimum follower threshold. Things such as live streaming, monetizing posts, etc. Artists looking to get record labels these days often have minimum social media follower count requirements too (from the labels). In the end it’s all about marketing and monetizing. They play to the algos, or outright buy fake followers, to build a sufficiently large platform to monetize. It’s fake and inauthentic, and it’s a means to an end that turns their followers into a customer base.
These influencoors just need follow bots to make them feel better. It's all about quantity, not quality, amirite?
It SHOULD be about quality, and if they use Nostr then it is possible to make it about quality instead of quantity. But for people using centralized algo-driven social media, then unfortunately they have no choice but to gain the minimum follower/view count before they’re even allowed to monetize their content. And in order to gain followers, they have to be seen and that requires appeasing the algos, which ultimately service the advertisers and other corporate interests of the company running the network.
It's such a relatively recent and stupid incentive structure, which ends up creating some real monsters like the YouToob thumbnail faces. It also pulls the ladder up from genuinely good content creators who don't have the tools that established ones do. Ultimately they are all taking a big risk by monetizing on these platforms, because they can get rugged with a simple rule change at any moment.
For users you’re having trouble driving engagement and finding content to interact with, maybe this will help. Go to the profile of someone you’re interested in and click on the three dots. Then add their feed to your homepage. From your home page you switch thru streams of content. It’s like flipping thru channels. You can do this for an infinite number of people or hash tags. It’s an easy way to find people and content to interact with, which will increase yourfollower count.
Followers are their dopamine hits. Sad but true
The real problem is the flip side of that — new users don’t know whom to follow. IMO recommender algo is essential for large scale adoption, because it lowers the barrier to entry.
A recommender service that curates stuff on behalf of users and suggests that is a pretty good idea. The throwaway term "algo" is not really a good one because it means different things from different people and often it means a centralized thing built into the protocol.
Whatever you call it, a recommender system like this naturally drives centralization. It doesn’t need to be (and shouldn’t) on the protocol level, though.
Well said my fren https://i.nostr.build/lwaYxD0zhbXLJ1Xt.jpg
Ego and low self worth.
Always remember that: "quantity is not quality". This applies to who you follow and who follow you
As a millennial who's seen the rise of the internet and social media, I’ve watched how algorithms have shaped content. Social media today is full of pandering and imitation, often at the expense of authenticity. We’re tribal by nature, so when someone gets likes and views, others follow, which leads to a race to the bottom in terms of quality. Instead of rewarding thoughtful or creative content, algorithms tend to boost what appeals to the lowest common denominator.
just note, to note. amirite
Here is a magic trick for you @fiatjaf 🤣😂😅 https://primal.net/e/note1qr79kq6j629k2stgdv9xcpzymu00l3guh7mk79y49sxqy57p5hlqc5322z
