Oddbean new post about login | logout This @Alby Zapper nostr:nevent1qvzqqqpxqupzq70sp5l45x0vspscnl9tq0qmunlcr5vwunm98jy043qluq6hpapjqqsydts8c3kggxx9ex45fz9uu58k3td42xqvgvaxajkeldksdtpnn6c78e6eu
#yestr
How do we get people started who don't have a Lightning Wallet, then? Maybe relays should accept credit card payments or something.
30-day free trial offer, and with weekly DM reminders to setup payment, is traditional. Just need to implement AUTH on a relay. @cloud fodder do you think that's a viable model? They could come up with a gazillion new npubs, to milk that, but each new one would have zero followers and that would be painful.
After 30 days you could just throttle it enough to eventually be annoying, and then block their npub after n months or whatever.
The Spotify model. They annoy you with ads into buying the subscription lol.
Yup.
They are free to use someone else's trial offer. 🤷♀️ They just can't use any offer more than once.
well, if it gets tied to npub and ip address, yep there will be lots of thinking happening i think because we are now blessed with the visitation of spammers which means nostr is winning
Any permanently-free relay will have to throttle or end up full of garbage and spam.
yeah, everyone is all of a sudden going to understand what me, cloudfodder, mazin and semisol have been saying for a very long time real world network conditions
Yup. They can't just scale up a free service to cover millions -- eventually, even billions! -- of people at peak performance. That's a ridiculous expectation. Free-to-use software can make sense. Write once, run anywhere. It's a document you can copy. Free-to-use services is literally not a thing.
yeah, nostr's architecture will make scaling large scale relay deployments easy too, probably can build em out of lots of small relays with relay coordinator/proxies around them
The updated filter.nostr.wine is extremely fast for me. They must have servers spannung the globe, or something. theforest.nostr1.com is also extremely fast
there can also be free limited trials and people can beg and earn their subs
Might be a way to work for a relay, as well. 🤔
well, contributing data in some way can have value, telemetry could give you a better tier than limited free level
An easy one would be feedback. Fill out a survey or bug report once per month to renew access, and that helps the developers and operators stay on top of things.
yeah, this would be a great way to get testers too, would be a big thing for a project that combines a client and relay together as an integrated package... primal is already going in this direction but i think i may be involved in such a project in the near future, fingers crossed (we want to do a slack/gsuite killer) initial reactions to the idea of infrastructure all being paid have been very indignant at first but they will all get it when they have to take down their free server because it's suddenly costing them a lot and the penny might actually drop
Free trials ain't free for the seller. There's a significant amount of work that goes into verifying npubs worthiness to a free trial, besides the cost of the trials itself. And then we're right back in CaPtChAs territory etc. I prefer focussing on the UX of: - Onboarding people you know, with gifted cash to spend, in communities where zaps fly - Facilitating P2P Fiat 🔄 Cash
Even with AUTH and throttling? 🤔 We don't have to verify that someone is human, after all, since bots can pay for relays.
Yes, good point. Auth + Rate limit = Great. They might be good enough for quite some stuff. But "Worthiness of a free trial" translates into "Likelyhood of using it paid" real fast when you look at products/services that are social, like many Nostr things inherently are. Letting tons of people try out your Tennis club for free might actually be a great idea on a specific "Discount Day" or something like this. But you don't ask your paying club members to invest time and energy into a bunch of new people aaaaaall the time. I've lived that life for a while in an ecovillage and it's bad UX. My guess is that, just like for those real-life examples, you don't simply let people in without some sort of skin in the game.
I think that makes sense for custom or community relays, but the generic social media ones are going to find it tough because they have no target group. They're probably going to have to link relay usage to their client, somehow. I guess that's why Bluesky went invitation-only.
You're right about constant, free trials on public relays being a burden to current customers, tho. Creates npub churn. You always see that effect when we have the onboarding waves and then everyone emotionally invests in welcoming newvbies and then most of them disappear again. Wears down the welcoming enthusiasm, with time.
Y'all KWIM? We need to get better at targeting and concretely onboarding the high-potential users, or we're going to exhaust and demoralize the welcomers and waste relay and dev resources. We're too inefficient and the offer isn't differentiated enough. We need more tiered pricing models, for instance, so that people see that they can upscale and get better service, rather than only offering low-scale service to everyone for free. nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzphtxf40yq9jr82xdd8cqtts5szqyx5tcndvaukhsvfmduetr85ceqydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpr3mhxue69uhhg6r9vd5hgctyv4kzumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcqypxrkmllsleme3n0wpf6qw62f45x6utl4ehq3apc6w837vmfs6eqxw4n8e4
I thought about taking other forms of payment, but anything other than crypto (I know, cringe word) is a total PITA, as far as regulations and processes are concerned. Lightning has the lowest barrier to entry. Definitely first choice. I could see a relay taking eCash, USD or Euro stablecoin, monero or doge, or something, tho.
LN has a low barrier to entry technically, but higher for the end user, at least psychologically. Maybe apps like Venmo or CashApp that can deal in crypto can help bridge the gap, but if Bitcoin holdings are non-optional for gaining access to Nostr networks, that will deter many who would otherwise be interested.
CashApp and Strike, I guess. Natural partners.
Don't have to hold Bitcoin, to pay in Bitcoin. You can just throughput your other money at point of sale, same way I use my euro account to pay people in dollars. I feel like, someone not up to that isn't emotionally ready for Nostr, anyway.
they are probably the first but xapo has lightning, on chain, swift, visa and mc payments, their fees are going up in september but i bet there will be competition soon i'm sure there will be more neobanks adopting LN in the future and then it's all rather moot
As a non-techie I’m going to reply to each message without reading the others to give a realistic perspective… I would & did originally pay with a debit card on a former NPUB. Happy to do so. Then felt my NPUB was shut down. Now I realize it may have been a misunderstanding on my part. It could have been me not understanding protocols. Probably was. Either way, I understand many want lightning wallets on but not every *Normie* (still dislike that word 😉) desires that. Respectfully, does this make sense?
Yeah that makes sense! What service did you pay for with a debit card? I haven't heard of any Nostr services using anything except Lightning payments.
When I first joined Nostr I mean I paid for ZAPS ⚡️ on Primal or alby. Must look at my statements as it’s been around 9-10 months. Also remember paying @jb55 for something when he said he wanted to give up. Remember it cause he asked if I meant to pay him & I responded my hope is to only help others or something similar 🫡 I’m very much not concerned with money & only seek to help others whenever possible. Mistakes happen all the time but seeking to help others has always been my way. 🤣
Soon after I joined Nostr I set up an Alby wallet, but I never connected it to a card. So it's a separate pot, all the sats in there come from zaps from Nostr interactions. Not every new person exploring Nostr will receive a ton of zaps, even if they do set up a wallet. It depends on how you use Nostr. That's why I'm interested in ways to let people use paid services without having to learn about lightning wallets right away. The best quality services will be paid, so we don't want to exclude people from them just because they don't want to bother learning about Bitcoin right off the bat.
Connect alby to a card? For what?
I don't even know if you can connect a card to Alby. I was just trying to follow what nostr:nprofile1qqsz4t0m3tragwk2d5tyakvjfq28jyqysf5kq8lkp4zx83x4kw4lmngpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejszxnhwden5te0w35x2en0wfjhxapwdehhxarjxyhxxmmdqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyuj9s2m was talking about.
I think there should defintwly be options for scenarios of people turning up on zero sats. This could be people on zero sats and zero knowledge, people who can afford to pay for sats, and those who can't. Rn I think primal and their app with wallet integrated has got it p much covered for people turning up with not much/no knowledge of bitcoin and no sats but want to be here (this mythical creature lol, but it does happen on rare occasions). But also yeah people who are willing/able to pay dosh for sats 🤔. Not sure that really exists now(?). Apparently primal also does this, but may not be working atm.
Beyond all that when I used names (NPUBS) & passwords others have given me … Some told me I had “hacked” them. 🤣 Even when I explained that is impossible they didn’t believe me. Not a computer hacker in any way. Granted, I have a lot of experience in narrative warfare but that was boots on ground & not cybersecurity. I have various NPUBS because of this & it’s been confusing, bothersome & more that others assume the worse when I’ve attempted to state clearly my experience & issues. 🤣 Late to online in general & definitely don’t understand online communications nor various relationships. Also, someone DID hack my computer & stole concert tickets. To them I said: Hope you had a good time. 🤣😉🫡 My ONE experience with Corny Chat I asked if any had heard of Aaron Swartz & they all claimed no. Which made me think … Then WHY are you here!
Personally I think lighting needs to get better, or we need more options. The thing for me is, I have some silly public keys and people send me money. I do the same. How is it that layer 1 is more simple than layer 2? That's my reason. Server software is pretty under-funded and lacking imo. It requires WAY more maintenance than any normie will want to do, and mobile wallets really seem to be the only modern option, but it still requires maintenance. So a custodial service and KYC it the go-to. This isn't an excuse but a personal reality. I simply cannot prioritize learning lightning right now, it's complicated, period. I don't think credit card is the way to go though. I think providers should be encouraged to setup whatever payment system they want though.