You have great points, but maybe you miss the biggest one: nostr isn't an app, it's a protocol. It's email, not GMail. It's http, not Netscape Navigator.

Yes the content mostly sucks if you compare to the tailored feeds. Your mates (and mine) aren't here yet, and can't be bothered to come. Definitely true that hand outs aren't sustainable.

BUT - existing social is actually slowly dying. Fiat made it ok for ad-dollars to fund crazy ass expansion but that party is coming to an end and except for TikTok, none of them yet figured out how to survive when the ad engagement rates keep dropping like they are.. the big hope now is AI, and who knows it might well save them if the brainless masses fully outsource their agency for a bit of convenience... the problem is that the mainstream social can't afford to slim down (just look at twitter's bills) - the overheads of centralised, regulated and manipulated businesses are pretty high, not to mention the tech stack costs which are exponentially higher for spiky demand they have to manage.

The point is this - status quo is not steady, the timing for nostr is good, but we have not seen a great nostr app yet and might be a while - but one thing I 100% agree with you on is this: nostr isn't going to succeed with shitty twitter/fb/etc.. clones, the innovation that takes social to a new place is needed,

BUT it is far more possible here in nostr, where you can get up and running as a dev in n hour and have an app that talks to relays in a couple of hours.

Nostr is the in the primordial soup state - it's nothing to look at, but it's bubbling with life.