Oddbean

zaps on nostr are the primary way I use bitcoin/lightning payments today. number 2 way is not even close in frequency/quantity. nostr is the best use-case for bitcoin payments we’ve ever seen. bitcoin payments was never was about coffee, but about new internet-native use-cases.

The left gets shut down all the time on other social platforms. They very much need a decentralized tool for sharing information. The challenge for adoption is the perception of who is on Nostr based on how it is messaged publicly. The current message is “freedom to” and misses the important aspect of “freedom from”. The left hears freedom to and thinks Nostr is the new 4chan, but that’s not really the case.

If you think about nostr as the future of the Internet, I'd argue that connecting the payment infrastructure (zaps) into the fabric of all future communication is more important for the adoption and expansion of nostr than for Bitcoin. Bitcoin would be fine without zaps.

Agreed. But admittedly, I’m biased as freedom tech is what brought me here. It’s understandable that those who came here already having Bitcoin may think otherwise. Humanity is varied & that’s what makes us such a fascinating species. 😊

Yes, and no. But still, I think bootstrapping a circular real-bitcoin economy is a much more acute need right now than monetizing content. Bitcoin doesn't really *need* nostr for that, but nostr is definitely contributing to bitcoin's success in that way.

350 million users? Seems ok to me. If nostr could get to even that scale I'd call that a success. Obviously our ambitions are much bigger, but I don't think capturing end-user economic activity in protocol is a necessary condition for that kind of scale (distinct from the economic activity of supporting developers/infrastructure, that obviously is needed).

Sorry I wasn’t able to continue the discussion after my wife got home from work, and the rest of the evening was family time. Here are a few thoughts I had on the topic through the evening, in no particular order and probably not formulated fully. - It may be more appropriate to discuss Twitter in comparison with Nostr clients, and Nostr itself in comparison with the Internet. It’s not exactly the same, though, since an “Internet user” is not ubiquitous across all apps on the Internet, whereas a “nostr user” can be found essentially anywhere across nostr by any client. - Twitter’s user base grew because Twitter continued to exist and be useful, and that required revenue to sustain. Even though it was rarely profitable, it existed because of revenue primarily from advertising and investors. - Twitter did capture a substantial amount of end user economic activity, if you look at the correct subset of its end users: advertisers. The “average Joe” end user (you and me) were the audience for the advertisers. Nostr clients could go that route, but I fear the outcome if and when that happens. - Twitter also captured some other user economic activity by incorporating profile tips, and Super Follows (now Subscriptions in X) that allowed people to support their favorite accounts/creators financially. - If you consider the Internet as a whole in comparison to Nostr, then economic activity becomes even more important as entire industries have been built upon it. - Payments on the internet have long been a problem, due to the centralized nature of legacy payment networks. This helped create silos, required KYC, and facilitated censorship. Bitcoin and Lightning fixes this, and without them nostr growth will be limited/handicapped by the incorporation of other more-permissioned payment systems. Probably some other thoughts too, but this is getting lengthy. I think we agree that commerce on nostr is important, although we seem to disagree on the extent to which end user economic activity is important. I’m glad you bring the topic up. Where the economic activity on Nostr occurs is an important issue, because I believe that where it occurs, or between whom it occurs, affects the incentives around the design of clients, relays, and perhaps the protocol itself. Any company or person building a business on Nostr, whether a dev or creator or merchant selling physical products, will have to serve the interests of those who provide their revenue in order to stay viable. It’s up to each company/person to decide who their real customers are, and to serve their interests.

Neither needs the other, but there's a great synergy. On the other hand, I guess you could argue that both tools are necessary to prevent the collapse of freedom, so in that sense they need each other. If I had to pick one though, I'd keep bitcoin.

True! I had the same in mind. I think both are essential as a sovereign individual. But I think, you could tolerate not having nostr more I guess too. But having the current state of the world, both seem quite essential if we head to 84. Because you need the protection of private property if shit hits the fan. But how do you know if shit hits the fan if every media outlet is controlled. Probably you could still know.

I agree. Nostr could thrive without btc if the right "new thing" popped up or if the right media publication wrote a positive story. Once you're here, you'll get into btc whether you wanted to or not. I've sold more tangible goods for zaps over nostr in 18 months than I have for in-person btc in the same period and I'm not even running a business profile. I know a lot of that is who the community is made up of, but the process has been so easy for both parties that there is now way this isn't the future of e-commerce... once things are mostly stable enough for it.

Coming back to this now that I have a chance to respond, and it's too bad we naturally tend to see statements like this as either/or, rather than both/and, just to different degrees. Zaps have definitely helped some with Nostr's adoption, and I agree with folks who point out that we need a way to natively transfer value to one another, and especially the devs building the Nostr tools we use, in order for this thing to be sustainable. However, when it comes to new users onboarding to Nostr, I doubt the "Come to Nostr, we have zaps!" mantra is what draws most of them here. Instead, I would bet that more people now are adopting Bitcoin because of their experience of zaps on Nostr than people adopting Nostr because it has zaps.