And the use of nostr - the killer apps need to come into focus and into headlines.
We have the early adapters, the motivated, the idealists, the passionate avantgards and the hoard of hippie-developers that just like to tinker and play... this is a good, right base, the primordial soup.
But some of us, those with influence and platform outside need to stop talking about ie being decentralised so much, and devs need to stop naming everything -str and clients most stop recommending follows of just nostr devs and their groupies. Or else it'll remain the nerd corner where there's much snickering and not much game.
We need to start focussing on the next part of the adoption curve - actual usefulness, actual UX, actual useful, intuitive and innovative apps that do stuff that hasn't been done before.
This site is a good example - interesting economic dynamic with a potential to be something cool.. but it's so so so painfully nerdy...
We need to be challenging some of the 'sacred cows' - ie
  • DECENTRALISE or die - probably another long post, but can you truly believe a significant uptake unless someone backs a company and invests a chunk of money with intent to profit? Companies are, by their nature, centralised. If they're to compete with one another for customers, they will have to compete on features as well as on service. Moreover, there are TONS of things you simply cannot do in a fully decentralised way, does this mean we give up on that?
  • FOSS or fuck off - why do we shun all non-FOSS companies, isn't that why the protocol is FOSS? As per above, how can we expect investment protection if all code is out there for anyone to take?
thoughts?
My issue with Nostr right now (and I've said this before here and elsewhere) is that most of the devs are spreading themselves thin feature-packoing their apps, rather than establishing single use cases, as @fiatjaf suggested. I believe this creates a lot of technical debt/bloat, and will limit the success of apps like Damus and Amethyst. It seems like many developers have taken adoption for granted, but unlike Bitcoin, Nostr didn't come with an implementation. And that's the point! Rather than perfecting any individual use case, they are concurrently developing various intertwined use cases, which resist compatibility with other clients/relays. I expect lots of bumps in the road as Nostr grows, lots of stratification and centralization. I still don't use Nostr because I haven't found a client or a relay that appeals to me. I hope to implement my own relay sometime soon, but that's an uphill battle I'm not ready to tackle.
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I disagree. Nostr can survive and thrive as a niche. It does not need to pander to the least common denominator. It does not need to dissolve its and become reddit or facebook.
Placating the masses is a recipe for growth but also homogeniety.
Let some killer app build on nostr, but nostr is a neutral protocol. Let it resist being embraced and eventually extinguished, like they did to email, and tried with xmpp.
Success is not determined by acceptance and spread, but resilience over time.
Venture capital mindset is r-selected.
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they extinguished email? wow we're getting some cross-dimensional noise here...
there's a sensible ground somewhere between the 'nerd corner' and 'scorched earth', no?
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Just try and start your own email provider that's not blocked by the one everyone else is on.
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and devs need to stop naming everything -str
Yes please.
I agree with many of your points. But FOSS or fuck off, I don't agree with this. There are good non FOSS products and they can continue building because they have a working business model. Yes they could do FOSS and run a business too, but it's ok if it's not (except if the product "protects" your private keys or other secrets, in this case, FOSS or fuck off). Small FOSS projects can't last forever without money. It's a fact
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my point was exactly to challenge the sacred cow of FOSS or fuck off
so you agree, i think..
to be clear, i love FOSS, because it fosters collaboration.. but i'm not a FOSS extremist, i think there's space for both in nostr
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I disagree. The advantage of the software corporations vs. FOSS was that they could fund the developers. With Lightning, now the FOSS developers can be funded directly. I believe this will be crucial to counteract the software corporations and have more and better FOSS (and eventually open hardware as well) than ever before.
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But nobody funds FOSS developers...
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Open Collective exists so long as you tow the politically acceptable line.
Otherwise, Bitcoin is king.
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My fear is that it remains in the nerd corner and never gets adopted. The single biggest inhibitor has to be the current UX.
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That’s a reasonable statement but I would hope there are other motives behind than pure profit.
I’m reminded of how geeky the internet or BTC would have stayed without a use case a wide audience could understand, appreciate and use. It did take some altruist devs to push it before profit.
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VERY TRUE

I guess time will only tell if/when that shift happens for nostr from geeky devs developing for the love of it to tech companies offering products/services on that protocol
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Well said, i think you'd like sms4sats, one purpose, useful, good ux.
Most of all, something you can only use sats for, which is the main thing lightning needs to offer to gain use beyond early adopters.
And in the background, that's something that nostr could be setting the ecosystem up for by allowing arbitrary peer to peer routing and being the main way to route around censorship, centralization, and surveillance.
Sms4sats is solving this problem in miniature, a way around sms verification, except nostr is creating a whole alternative system that doesn't need sms verification measures, but as you've said this is somewhere well down the road.
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i do like it.. but it is very niche, in fact, i'm struggling to think of non-candescent uses..
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I think it's OK for nostr to be a nerdy playground right now. It's still in its infancy and people are figuring out what it's best for. I have yet to be convinced that the killer app for nostr is social media -- I think the potential use cases are much broader than that. But who knows? I say embrace the chaos for now and enjoy the ride.
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Nostr will never go mainstream so long as nearly every Nostr post is about Nostr and/or Bitcoin. People did go on Twitter in the early days and constantly tweet about Twitter.
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I find Nostr amazing but one thing normies avoid is anything related to Bitcoin and Nostr are mostly devs and Bitcoiners.
I also agree with @primitive1 it is getting bloated of many apps, what Nostr also needs are good main third party clients as other social media as Lemmy, Lemmy got traction really fast thanks to Sync client moving to Lemmy and Voyager which resembles Apollo.
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Nostr will go mainstream "the year of Linux desktop". I remember reading Slashdot posts "This year is the year of Linux desktop" regularly about 15 years ago.
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The best tech goes unnoticed
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Both of these sound like perfect ways to kill Nostr.
I think it is important to remember Nostr is a in development beta test of a new, free, uncensorable, decentralized social media protocol. It is created and maintained by a loose, growing coalition of devs, volunteers & friends.
It might be wise to maintain some perspective when comparing Nostr to centralized & controlled, decade old social media platforms ran by some of the world's largest corporations.
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Are you actually saying that acceptance of any centralised apps or non-FOSS projects would kill nostr?
If your read my post I'm saying nostr should not automatically shun non-FOSS and "centralised" efforts, or else we risk excluding real investment coming in to take it further
my perspective extends to the very beginning of the internet, where it was NOT the opensource that made internet go mainstream. I'm not saying we need an Internet Explorer of nostr to make it relevant, I think opensource now is ages ahead of what it was back then, but I can't help but wonder how the transition from indie to big time happens without serious money / structures. You may well be right that it is too early.
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I posted this yesterday on Nostr. I think it fits as a reply here.
I see many notes worrying that Nostr isn't growing fast enough. I'm not worried though. I don't think the growth will be linear.
All it will take is ONE application to go viral. The day that happens the whole thing will explode. That's the protocols magic. Once people get sucked in, they can already "log in" to every other thing made on Nostr. That's the day every Nostr apps user count goes to the moon.
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ABSOLUTELY! The thing that is holding nostr back is FOSS

Building on nostr needs to be PROFITABLE in order for people to be INCENTIVIZED to work HARD on that shit so they can make MONEY

Fucking devs just writing code for fun is bullshit because they don't give a fuck about what the market (i.e. people) actually want. They're just building for themselves.
The moment people start building on nostr for other people and for profit, then nostr will work.
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Just build and let the market shake it all out.
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I agree their are more important things we need.
Still, social media is a part of life these days & NOSTR is the best we got at the moment
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errybody take a look at 'you need to do things differently' / public journal guy
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