Why? Big platforms benefit from scalability and economies of scale. So in the end, while taking a portion, the content creator gets more.
A small piece of a big pie, is still bigger than a big piece of a tiny pie.
And due to scalability issues nostr cant scale to even 1% of bluesky without having to nuke all its data, let alone, compete with a big platform, which themselves are 100x bigger than bluesky.
It's a catch22 situation, and content creators cant be expected to take a large loss, on something that doesnt scale. This is the market alraedy voting.
This is a good point. But the vast majority of that comes from one very generous person who i think have given 57 million, about half of which goes to nostr. Not sure that can last forever.
If you remove that. Very little goes to content creators. Tips are typically 21sats which is about 2cents. Would you give someone on the street 2 cents?
There may be a handful of generous bitcoin whales but very little trickles down. And in the case of the relay network, nothing went to them of that generous donations. Much is still unaccounted for.
If the money was fairly allocated it would be a different story. But how to do that?
Correct to both. did is fundamentally broken, and did:web should never have been.
The root problem is the "either/or" fallacy and applying binary thinking to decentralization.
When I started the work on DID it was to create content-addressable identifiers using web standards. But it got co-opted by lots of folks that wanted to use the term "decentralized" in their marketing (normally to sell centralized tokens).
Fediverse was created as step one of a system that would offer competition to sites like facebook (though it lurched in the direction of open microblogging and then activities). It's better than the status quo and allows open source competition to giants.
It was only supposed to be the first layer, and that content addressable PKI would come after. But things have become more political and folks talk about "The Social Web" (caps) as a brand. And that gets in the way.
Still innovation continues. I send this message from nostr which is (decentralized) content addressable pubkeys to fediverse, via a bridge. The grass roots finds ways to route round centralized structures, eventually.
Pretty decent definition of ecash right there.
nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpt9ua3r45xj0jjqe88k0h5wr6ygltddywj3e4cpeh0rjplwnqklvqy2hwumn8ghj7erfw36x7tnsw43z7un9d3shjqpqe9zs45qgt85z8vaep76x5f0rcwdsjzn36pdmkc7khsyury4d76tsuhr97f
Good thesis but the flaw is to think that bitcoin scales linearly. A 100T asset has a completely different threat model to a 1T asset. And bear in mind the security halves every 4 years. It's a subtle thing. Attracting capital is one part of the problem. Protecting it the other part, and often dismissed as easy. The threat model if an ant is different to the threat model of an elephant.
Alice has a debt to Bob. For Bob that's an asset, for Alice that's a liability.
The denomination of the debt has a backing. That can be fractional or full, or, psychological.
Full or fractional reserve debt can be done with either bitcoin, gold, or any bearer instrument.
But each of these things has an addressable market, and practical limits on what size of that market it can occupy.
Yes it can be done, but it's complicated.
No, that's not quite right. Money has both an inflationary and deflationary aspect. It has a life cycle. Money can be both created and destroyed.
When I incur debt it is created. When I pay it back, it is destroyed. When I default it is destroyed. I can pay back debt with worh in lieu of my debt, if I dont have ready cash.
The system has both stable states and unstable states. There is a theory that stability is destabilizing, too.
This is quite nebulous and difficult to fully comprehend.
Money must have a life cycle of some sort, just zoom out and this is self-evident. Bitcoin was created, for example, by Satoshi. New bitcoins are created every day.
If you did your Bill Still video homework he explains all of this in much more detail.
Money has layers. Just like bitcoin. Most money is created by commercial banks in exchange for a loan agreement.
This money or currency (to Joe Public it's the same) is either fully or fractionally backed. You would rather full reserve than fractional, but the end user seems to have been conditioned not to care, very much.
np, I almost grasped what you were but I think with some refinement it would be easier
there is a time aspect to money which is inherent in loans, and a static aspect which we associate with assets
perhaps if you develop your ideas along these lines it could develop into quite a good concrete theory.
Great day to you too!
Not quite the yeild, because yeild involves risk. You argue say it's the cost of capital or risk-free rate. Yield on btc would by higher than btc because it involves risk. Understandably many would not want such risk, and it is good to be skeptical.
Interesting thesis and I like it. A couple of caveats: if the big 3 miners collude it could pose some risks, though we've not seen that yet. And bear in mind that while that each halving halves supply, but also halves security, and that will be something that needs to be addressed 10-20 years from now. One way would be to increase fee bearing transactions in line with the hardware (disk, memory, network) of the day, and software capabilities. Things that could mitigate this are stratumv2, ocean mining, utreexo, increased mempool. But chain split is bigger risk than reorg for now. Still a bit of work to do before we can say btc replaces gold.
It misses the point. Users should control their profiles, not a centralized committee. Nostr is a protocol, not a cult. Let users choose. Have some defaults, and then users can select a number of extra fields. For example mastodon has 4, which people like alot. We can then start to add new things to nostr such as #pubky decentralized dns and true censorship-resistant. We are far too centralized right now.
Gotcha! But the reality is a bit more nuanced. Nostr was blocked in china quite quickly. Bluesky is 100x the size of nostr. I think now it's 200x the size, growing 100x more in the last month. It's blocked because it's big. If nostr was that big, it would be blocked too. Nostr relays are just web servers at the end of the day. You can make the argument that its easier to run a relay than a web server, but that probably is not true. Nostr has a bit of resilience which is a good thing, and better than the status quo. But it can easily be blocked, its just too small to block right now.
Nostr kind of centralized around a handful of key relays. If those ‘moles’ get whacked, the system might not fully recover, especially since most of the smaller, long-tail relays have moved on. If the long-tail had been supported, it would be a different story. So yeah, taking out a few big relays would actually be quite effective right now.
That said, moles only get whacked when they grow large enough or start causing problems. At the moment, Nostr is still relatively small and not really causing major headaches, though I’m sure it’s on the radar of various deep states.
The big advantage Nostr offers is that if one admin cancels you, you’re not starting over from scratch. It’s more like a shadow ban than a full ban. Your identity and content persist—it’s just about finding another relay.
That said, Nostr is a solid system with a lot of potential. There’s a bit of a catch-22, though: right now, it’s heavily subsidized and not sustainable. For it to become sustainable, it would need significant growth, but growth would make it a bigger target. So for now, it’s more of an R&D niche, not really threatening anyone.
Both are protocols. The At protocol which powers bluesky was much smaller than nostr 2 years ago. Now it is 100x bigger. It's OK to acknowledge they did some things right. That is how you learn and can improve.
Yes, or bring back the original browser, before it got taken over by VCs. Which some of us are still working on. It's a lot of fun, and yesterday we added nostr integration!
When I see that image I'm impressed to see 1.1 milloin followers. Not because it's a lot of users (which it is), but because I wonder how nostr would do a query with so many authors in it. They definitely have some good bits.
"Post Open" -- interesting -- but could be done without github using sats:
“You can think of it as ‘open source with teeth’. It keeps the freedoms of open source for individuals and smaller companies, the ones we should be helping … It requires that deeper-pocket entities, ones with more than [$5 million in] revenue per year, to pay a small percentage of that (it ramps up to 1% as they grow) to support the developers. And we instrument git repositories to apportion that to the developers of the software the paid users are using.”
https://thenewstack.io/what-comes-after-open-source-bruce-perens-has-some-ideas/
Do note that when I created NIP-17 the primary use case was to route sats from the users of the system, to the developers that contribute, via git commitments.
Awesome! It was all designed around on-chain FWIW. It's a big reason nostr got built. Key is that pubkeys are used in the ledger. Excited to see what you come up with!
Check out #pubky. It does decentralized DNS and stroage based on a verifiably censorship-resistant network:
https://pubky.tech/
Nostr could gain a great deal by looking at this tech.
I do. They want to own the "@" symbol. And at:// is the scheme that they want, which the IETF is not too happy about. Obviously they are quite late to that party, so it can only end up as a mess. A Bold Protocol.
I dont have as much time as I'd like to maintain the following nostr sites:
https://nostr.social/https://nostr.rocks/https://nostr.chat/https://nostr.me/
I am glad they have been useful so far.
But, if someone has a serious proposal to they can be used help improve the nostr eco-system, please email me. Thanks!
Not quite everyone, Rabble is very good. Will IMHO is one of the better ones, but he is certainly in the group that would rather throw stones, than look and learn, and make nostr better. It's sad that this toxic positivity has taken over so much developement to the extent where it's hard for nostr to improve.
Bluesky did a lot of things well. Especially growth. They invested in infrastructure and it paid off big. They created a great UX with simple features that users wanted.
Nostr does have a large investment 10s of millions from the foundations via jack. Its silly to say that nostr has to be 100x smaller than other protocols because reasons.
Nonetheless there are some good projects in nostr outside of damus. Ditto and nos.social are two projects looking to learn and build bridges. Also chachi chat is great. I would target investment in the outward looking projects, rather than folks that want to mock projects that were smaller and grew 100x bigger.
Will was not around when we built nostr, he came to it quite late. I totally agree that his work on damus was, and continues to be instrumental. As I say he is one of the better ones. But the group think is around slagging off projects like blue sky and not trying to learn and make nostr better. Mocking other projects that have been way more successful is wrong. It should be rejected. Nostr needs to transform from an insular project to a collaborative one. It's the only way forward.
The point is that nostr is not real decentralization, and neither is bluesky. Each model has trade-offs. And can learn from each other. A good path to success is to avoid the "either/or" fallacy aka binary thinking. Satoshi was a master at this. In fact, the word decentralized never appears in the white paper, but distributed occurs 6 times!
That line is a psychological line. http is a decentralized protocol, tho some will argue that it is not. But if it is the parent protocol of nostr, so anything nostr can do, http can do, and more. So if you think nostr is decentralized then http must be decentralized.
It might be useful to use the term "sufficiently decentralized". The term has become a slogan and a cliche in modern s/w engineering, in any case.
You could look at it another way. If the main bluesky node went down it could be critical. If damus went down it would be a pretty bad situation in nostr. If one particular website goes down it doesnt matter too much. If any bitcoin node or miner goes down, it will barely be noticed. If one pubky or bittorrent node goes down, the system is resilient.
Dont forget an important fact that Jack funds nostr to the tune of about 1 million dollars a month just to keep the lights on. Without that, you would see a very different situation. That is a central point of failure right there, that cannot be wished away.
This is not a serious argument. Jack's generous donations amount to about $1mm a month and makes a massive impact. Especially since most non-payroll devs have left.
They've actually got more open over time, which has amazed me. More of it, I say! Nostr has become more centralized. You just never know how projects will develop, but all can strive to be better!
These are thoughtful points, but I'd suggest focusing on "verify, not trust."
Nostr governance is highly centralized—one person has overriding control, often contrary to community sentiment ("It's my project, I can do what I want"). This has driven most grassroots contributors away, leaving a small but dedicated group, including great folks like Alex. Meanwhile, Bluesky's interoperable standards outpace Nostr's, though neither is perfect. Nostr's stagnation (e.g., no markdown, editing, or smart widgets) and resistance to scaling innovations have stifled growth.
Nostr absolutely does not have opaque decision making. It has a centralized king-maker effect with very caustic people at the top. Developers are told, "This is dumb", "This is stupid", "We dont need this", "We dont need relays", and even "Go back to where you came from". Overt and blatant racism is tolerated. 90%-95% of the grass roots have left, but thankfully Jack's amazing generosity keeps much of the project going.
Onboarding is another weakness—while Nostr champions user ownership, the steep learning curve drives users to easier alternatives like Bluesky, Mastodon, or Threads. Transitional tools like subkeys or delegation could help but remain unaddressed. Decision-making isn’t opaque—it’s centralized and often dismissive, with a "king-maker" dynamic that's alienating to developers.
Still, Nostr thrives on Jack’s support, powering good projects like Ditto and Chachi Chat. But sustainability remains a challenge, and much of the development feels grant-driven rather than user-focused.
The points you make a are great ones—just temper trust with verification. I've been here from the beginning, contributed heavily, and taken heat for pointing out issues. There's value in Nostr, but its slogans often need scrutiny.
On IP Leakage. Fiatjaf’s actions speak for themselves. He quietely included analytics that share IP addresses with third parties, without consent, then promoted it prominently on the front page of the protocol area. You can verify this yourself at https://nijump.me (warning: it includes spyware not found in the source). It’s concerning that other developers either ignored this or made light of it, instead of addressing the clear violation of trust. This behavior undermines claims of caring about IP Leakage.
https://image.nostr.build/9fe474ffeb8f500c444f453f3aaf26c04e3c9794105d1014e1d1c3a8d4298c52.jpg
Ah, but there are consequences, for both the gamer and the gamed. You could steal something from a low security super market, but you might find myself paying a price.
Leaving unsolicited the personal attack to one side. You are not making a credible argument. The topic was the attack on testnet3. And you've created a false equivalence. It comes accross as a bad faith argument that is not productive, so I'll thank you for your opinion and we can agree to differ.
Bad. Bitcoin doesn’t need this soft fork. It’s being pushed by a small group with big financial incentives, not by any real demand from the community.
This isn’t like the block size debate last time. What’s being proposed here would lead to an exponential increase in memory requirements, and they’ve failed to show why Bitcoin should bear that cost. If there were genuine demand, we’d see it thriving on platforms like Signet or Liquid—but no one’s using it there. That says a lot.
The reality is, Bitcoin already has so many underused features that can do the same things without risking its integrity. Bitcoin’s strength lies in its simplicity and its role as a store of value for 200 million people. That’s the social contract, and it’s what makes Bitcoin valuable.
Let’s be honest: this proposal isn’t about making Bitcoin better. It’s about agitating for a change to suit a few interests. We’ve seen these governance attacks before, and we’ll see them again. But every time, Bitcoin’s community has stood strong and rejected unnecessary risks. This should be no different
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These are thoughtful points, but I'd suggest focusing on "verify, not trust." Nostr governance is highly centralized—one person has overriding control, often contrary to community sentiment ("It's my project, I can do what I want"). This has driven most grassroots contributors away, leaving a small but dedicated group, including great folks like Alex. Meanwhile, Bluesky's interoperable standards outpace Nostr's, though neither is perfect. Nostr's stagnation (e.g., no markdown, editing, or smart widgets) and resistance to scaling innovations have stifled growth. Nostr absolutely does not have opaque decision making. It has a centralized king-maker effect with very caustic people at the top. Developers are told, "This is dumb", "This is stupid", "We dont need this", "We dont need relays", and even "Go back to where you came from". Overt and blatant racism is tolerated. 90%-95% of the grass roots have left, but thankfully Jack's amazing generosity keeps much of the project going. Onboarding is another weakness—while Nostr champions user ownership, the steep learning curve drives users to easier alternatives like Bluesky, Mastodon, or Threads. Transitional tools like subkeys or delegation could help but remain unaddressed. Decision-making isn’t opaque—it’s centralized and often dismissive, with a "king-maker" dynamic that's alienating to developers. Still, Nostr thrives on Jack’s support, powering good projects like Ditto and Chachi Chat. But sustainability remains a challenge, and much of the development feels grant-driven rather than user-focused. The points you make a are great ones—just temper trust with verification. I've been here from the beginning, contributed heavily, and taken heat for pointing out issues. There's value in Nostr, but its slogans often need scrutiny.