Pkarr was suggested to Nostr people probably a year ago or so. We have been working on our vision for the web since before Nostr existed, and we created Pubky to be what we think is the best design. So why should we retrofit it to Nostr conventions and make it worse again? Why should we be spending 2 years lobbying people to do make fundamental changes they do not want ro make? You see this all thru a lens of Nostr but it just isnt our world really. Its like asking us to make it more like Mastodon or Hypercore, no, we made it this way in purpose and we have great reasons for it.
Regarding DHT scale, it used for dns records, and it is very fast and larger than any other decentralized network, so it is weird to be casting doubt from beneath its shadow, no? Yes, all networks hit scaling challenges, but this is why we designed Pubky to put the user in control, to allow for central service in a safer way.
Why do you think we are claiming something prior to our own brand? We literally list every single alternative in the post as well as explain exactly what we do differently and how we use Mainline.
We are just another group of people with our own ideas about how to fix the web, we dont really owe nostr anything, but we are happy to engage with interested users and devs. It is what it is.
Why didnt nostr build on one of the other incompatible designs that existed before it?
Why is it ok for you to act NIH about Nostr, but not for people to invent things outside of Nostr?
Why are we discussing loyalty and emotion in a tech conversation?
Okay but this is not what "hard fork" means. This is not a blockchain and we didnt use any Nostr code. We were never Nostr and there were no forks or defections.
So far, there are two reactions to Pubky in Nostr land:
1. This is cool, let me try it... nice! i am surfing the sovereign web with my own key! whats your roadmap?
2. Zomg just use nostr you tether shitcoiner this is just slashtags/nostr/keet rebranded i hate you i am going to marry nostr
Incentives are wild.
Pubky has absolutely nothing to do with Keet, this is just sloppy associative ignorant hater talk, cmon...
Learn what it is, or dont, but the people that actually look into it like it.
Because it isnt, really. Slashtags was an attempt to build our vision using hypercore, we scrapped that design and made Pubky instead.
It took us 1 year to make Pubky. This is a the product of the hard work of a dedicated team trying to help users.
If you want to learn about new things, we have lots of info about what makes Pubky different, but we also understand people feel loyal to their social media protocols, and might prefer to discredit us.
Well then! I cant claim to have dealt with nostr governance myself, i guess i was writing based on the impression the community projects outward via events and narratives. Some people were already starting to complain that Pubky came from a company, so I think it is at least good to address the concepts.
Do not be scared to believe, and say, that you are the right man for the job.
Do not let people strip you of your confidence or tear you down with their insecurities, you have enough of your own doubts already!
Take your work and actions seriously, be responsible, be honest, seek the truth and wave to the haters in the rearview mirror.
Never, never, listen to someone who does not want the best for you... but recognize when a criticism is exactly that.
Indeed, just consider that you can't really map the concept of a tyrant general or misguided leader onto an open-source web protocol team, so it may be more interesting to discuss the tech than my ego or fallibility.
We are running a week of daily new demos for Pubky!
Visit pubky.org and learn more, or check out the video walkthroughs on YouTube.
https://m.primal.net/LnGT.png
All *humans* are subject to state violence.
There is no less risk for the core maintainers of a foss repo than to the c-level of a corp.
Both are fully open-source, both are dependent on a few sources of funding, both are led by corruptible killable humans.
Otherwise, I challenge you to find a more principled benevolent leader than myself.
fwiw there has certainly been more money put into nostr than our company -- but we do at least have certain advantages of being an organized group with a roadmap, etc
Yknow, you guys could always actually read any/some/all of the actual docs and content we have created, but i guess it is understandable that Nostr has a major tribalistic aspect of its culture.
Many links at pubky.tech if you actually want to learn about our work.
Narrowing what we are doing to "social media app" would not be accurate.
I dont really use nostr for the same reason, too much talk about Bitcoin and nostr.
But in the end this is a release of a lot of cool open source tech, and the rest is helping people realize what is possible with it.
We provided open source code and tools and demos and docs and a knowledge base and an Ai-deep dive and overall all of our content about Pubky specifically focuses on what exactly is novel and interesting about our architecture, and about our client application. Please have a look and i think what is different is pretty clear :)
There are several possible mitigating areas of research/investment:
- a shift toward more people running servers themselves, at home, at scale, all sizes.
- a shift toward key-based accounts, but with key-based routing for credible exits
- more rights for server businesses around free speech, and relaxing of liabilities and compliance expectations. Removal of copyright/ip laws. Removal of hate speech rights. General reframing of net law to focus on the culprits not the abstracted hosts.
Just some quick ideas...
The INTERNET is the hydra, the challenges are scale and credible exits.
People really want/need great large "marketplaces" to coordinate and connect within.
This results in the inevitable need for centralization in some/many aspects of serving data.
There will always be a set of the largest and most popular chat apps, websites, and ... nostr relays which could be choked, and causr disruption.
The fact that servers can mirror data does not change this because, it would be impossible for many/all peers to serve extremely large data sets.
These are physical and incentive-locked dynamics that cannot be changed, but they can be mitigated at other levels (which nostr does not use afaik).
The good news is that end users CAN be protected from this, but the bad news is scaled servers will always have physical risks, despite scaled servers always being extremely useful.
Oddbean new post about login | logout
Notes by NostrErrorLog | export