Oddbean

Nostr is the protocol, the base project that sits under a lot of smaller projects. I'd guess that at least 2/3 of the nostr projects have already failed. Some barely even brought a client to market before being wound up or fading into obscurity. The most popular projects are smashing it by iterating & building on top of their successes. New projects for other use-cases are constantly sprouting up & fizzling out. Only the best survive, but the protocol remains & your npub allows you to play in them all with very little cost. The protocol & the idea is more resilient than the apps that are built on top to interact with it. Nostr is inevitable, what's uncertain is how we'll all use it.

You think there is little cost, but that is because the costs are hidden from you. The relay network is neglected and shrinking, and along with it, censorship resistance. The issue with nostr, in fact with any social netowork, according to research, is that after some time there is a tendancy to free ride. After that kicks in, cooperation decreases and there is a force to reduce. Nostr is not inevitable. It's rivals have grown 10x in the same time nostr has gone sideways, and the relay structure slowly dying. It's a double loss, because you lose the relay, and you also lose a talented developer that might have helped the project. In fact the cost of developer time is more than the cost of supporting the relays. The problem with nostr is that the relays were intentionally starved of support, with the comment, "we dont need more relays". Which is sad.