Oddbean new post about login | logout Some entrepreneurial mind should create the Association for the Development of Nostr: a formal membership-based entity whose sole purpose is to use it's membership revenue to support the open source development via it's own staff. Having an entity that is pushing code without being connected to any particular project is essential for decentralization of our own projects.
Why? Isn’t there enough people out stealing others work already? Hence AI?
What is the member benefit? Aside from dev funding for things they use.
That's the benefit. Associations generally operate like that.
BITCOIN FOUNDATION VIBES TBH
Theres a bitcoin foundation? 🤔
Foundations tend to be legally limited on having members, so I think Associations might fit better in this model. But yep. Good thing we are so free that we can't really block the creation of such entity :)
I don't know if I get your point but I thought about a network of well interconnected devs, something like a school of fish constantly roaming over nostr. My hypothesis was that Nostr would give rise to natural elites that would be the first winners of the economic system of Nostr. Those elites would require developers to benefit from comparative advantages. The developers that helped the first elite would become elites themselves. This second elite would require OTHER developers and so on. But the success of this idea would only be possible if a large number of developers are well interconnected already
Those elites already exist. Independent of this idea of the association. A developer elite we have today is not necessarily better than any other type of elite.
Who are those elites? Maybe I put the wrong name. When I talk about elites, I'm referring to the people that win the competition in terms of the law of supply and demand. I haven't seen anything that gets successful profits over nostr yet.
Sure, the elites today are not making money. But the power is already there. They just need to turn power into profits. It will be a lot easier for them than to any other dev. Elites are not necessarily good or bad. They will exist no matter what happens. The problem is to create the right free-market accountability to them. Usually that means different interest groups that are ready (have the legal and operational structure) to seize the elites place as soon as they make a mistake.
The premise is faulty when you assume that everyone is motivated by power or material things.
So a pyramid scheme?
A pyramid scheme or Ponzi scheme is a strategy where the parties involved have to contribute money to a central party that then redistributes that money preferentially to the members with higher status or history in the system. It's a Zero sum Game and a scam. I'm not saying anything about ponzi schemes. I'm only saying that developers have to come together independently and try to reap the oportunities helping those who have money but don't have the time to sweep the informatic floor (just kidding)
Do you mean like central planning?
No, I mean separate the money flow and accountability to that from the existing projects. We can have multiple associations as well. As a user, you can subscribe to whoever you think better uses their money.
So something like OpenSats?
Or many alternatives to OpenSats with completely differentiated fund flows, legal structure and accountability loops.
Ok so do you propose different projects could operate under a same umbrella that would take care of the legal and money issues so they could focus on the production side of things only?
No, nobody is "under" anything. They should all be independent from one another. And it's not about sending all the money in just one way, it's to have as many money avenues as possible. Devs will have their legal and revenue models in each project. The associations would have a separate model that can add or fight against projects according to their own values.
Are you basically describing a Project Manager or Product Owner who is also in charge of pay?
No, while the entity could hire those, they would not be managers because the entity wouldnt have their own projects. Their goal is to double down on other projects out there that are managed independently by those groups.
Well no
Man.. Bitcoiners really have a PTSD with Foundations don't they? You all need therapy. :) It doesn't need to be just one association for Nostr. The goal is to not centralize, but the decentralize from today's projects and create free-market accountability to the decision on the application of the cash alone. That is a feedback loop that should be separate from the application development feedback loop. Devs can do the app dev feedback loop just fine. But we are generally terrible to create good cash application feedback loops. Separating the two makes sense. It allows users to bet on separate individuals. nostr:nevent1qqsw2nlnf928yz59e7y8xnx6p9p7385shvan0tg2gxrqrwatyxphxlqpzemhxue69uhhv6t5daezumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6q3qgcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqxpqqqqqqzr7dy7l
I never was a fan of the Bitcoin Foundation. The problem is that people I would most trust with this, won't do it and those who will inevitably do it, will do it solely for the money they can earn with it with no ethics beyond the facade that is necessary for business.
Neither was I. But this idea that "people we trust need to do it" is dangerous. What if WE are wrong? What if our need to "trust" is hampering Nostr's development? I think about that all the time. The Nostr community is extremely close minded. We are all basically the same individual. It's by far the least adversarial community I participate nowadays. I want to trust the free market. If some crazy person goes for this and attracts significant support for their ideas, I will be the first in line to want to see it just to make sure my ideas are what I think they are.
An account for your proposal could be DNS, but against would be DNSSEC (https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/01/15/against-dnssec/).
