Why Nostr resonates
2053 sats \ 11 comments \ @sebastix 24 Oct 2023 nostr
After visiting BTC Amsterdam, my head was full of Nostr and I needed to write down my thoughts on why this protocol resonates. Plus I tried to write it down in a way some of family and friends can understand it (giving them a purpe pill).
For me, Nostr resonates with many trends and signals I follow on the internet. Plus, it matches many of my own personal values around online privacy and digital autonomy. Nostr can fix the web in a similar way how bitcoin can fix the money system. And try to image when the two merge together.
For me it makes sense that Nostr will evolve into a future-proof protocol.

- Nostr clients are local-first

- Data portability between clients

- You really own your identity

- Privacy by default

- Permissionless

- Going trustless

- It’s easy and developer friendly

- Censorship resistance

- Nostr is agnostic and for any data you would like to share

- Integrating the value4value model

- Backed by a community

My full blog explaining each point: https://sebastix.nl/blog/why-nostr-resonates/

It’s still very, very early

Compared to a new discovered territory, we’ve just started building small shelters. The Nostrverse is still very small with maybe 100 builders who are tinkering their way around the protocol. This means new clients and features popup every week. As now, many clients (and relays) are suffering from different performance issues. Most applications out there are doing one thing incredibly well. This means you need to use many different applications to understand and feel the Nostr experience. That’s currently how I’m moving through the Nostrverse. For now that’s ok. We need that friction to innovate and drive discovery. There is no freedom without restrictions. I’m sure the future will bring many more great applications with features which will show a completely new paradigm on how the web can work for us: the individuals.

My quest on contributing to Nostr

As a developer I'm looking for ways how I can contribute to the Nostrverse. Currently I'm maintaining and building on these projects in my spare time.
I also have some other technical ideas:
  • how Nostr people and applications can benefit more from NIP-65 (many people are loosing their contacts if they start using more than one application)
  • how Drupal can be used as a RMS (relay management system for e.g. moderating content) on existing relay implementations
If you would like help me out with my quest, please reach out to me on Nostr. My pubkey is npub1qe3e5wrvnsgpggtkytxteaqfprz0rgxr8c3l34kk3a9t7e2l3acslezefe or search for my Nostr handle sebastian@sebastix.dev.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @adexmakai4211 24 Oct 2023
I must say you're very much right with everything you wrote about Nostr. I myself was surprised the very first day I discovered Nostr. Nostr is a great hub , an open one for that matter.
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42 sats \ 2 replies \ @Actuary 24 Oct 2023
Your bulletpoints are spot on.
Your "other technical ideas" resonates with me because I do like to try different apps. But, contacts do not always show up in a new app. I also find that bookmarks and followers don't always sync up.
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150 sats \ 1 reply \ @sebastix OP 25 Oct 2023
Thanks!
I found this tool for fixing your contact lists: https://metadata.nostr.com/ You could also try https://nostrsync.live/
With different clients the possibility is there you're connected to different relays each (they also load in different orders). It depens on how a client has implemented this. So this may lead to those differences when you view your data. My DMs, numbers of followers also are always different when I compare them in a client. Part of the design of Nostr: there is no single source of truth.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Actuary 25 Oct 2023
Thanks! I will try those out.
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42 sats \ 6 replies \ @Natalia 24 Oct 2023
But I'm having a mixed feeling about Nostr
  • hard to find good info
  • slow
  • it seems the essence of social medias are for completing eyeballs and numbers?
I could be wrong tho, I'm only posting meme and copy & paste my things there atm 😂
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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @sebastix OP 25 Oct 2023
For finding best content we've SN offcourse ;-) Do you know you can use any npub to login and view their feed? Try this with people you know they care about good content. I often check their list of following to find interesting other ones who share good content.
The slowness...that can have many, many reasons... I always try to have 10-15 relays with me which are widely used and have a fast connection (response times). All clients use WebSockets so this mean many asynchronous requests at once. This can be quite a huge load for your device and everything starts to lag..
For me Nostr means much more than just having social media, there are already many kind out there which can be used for many types of content you would like to share.
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21 sats \ 4 replies \ @Natalia 25 Oct 2023
For finding best content we've SN offcourse ;-)
haha, yes, it's about the vibe, stackers really take the time to read and give feedback here, so you attract more of the type of people who put into the work to share good stuff.
and one of my fav things is NO numbers, NO followers count here! But ranking by sats being stacked, real money showing proof of work instead of cheap likes.
Do you know you can use any npub to login and view their feed? Try this with people you know they care about good content. I often check their list of following to find interesting other ones who share good content.
yes, I did and logged in with a few people before, it felt weird; and being able to see when and who others talk to is even more weird; However, I do hope the best for Nostr.
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100 sats \ 3 replies \ @sebastix OP 26 Oct 2023
Hmmm, one of the fundamental parts of Nostr is building your own social graph. Sounds like an interesting experiment to do this following zero people.
There are some interesting (tinkering) projects which could be helpful in finding new (and good, curated) content https://satellite.earth/ https://nostr.kiwi/ https://listr.lol/ https://yakihonne.com/
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Natalia 26 Oct 2023
Hmmm, one of the fundamental parts of Nostr is building your own social graph. Sounds like an interesting experiment to do this following zero people.
I didn't quite understand what's this social graph for to be honest, haha, so I was thinking, if all I have is 20 minutes to read things online, would I prefer scrolling endless yet average feeds in Nostr or actually reading useful things? So I unfollowed everyone there, and I don't feel like missing out on anything at all.
And I'm only being rational in a sense; that's limited hours each day, I'm trying to see what works better for me:
  • Twitter is draining emotion with all the negativity and algorithm
  • Nostr is better vibe, but full of average content - why eat average food when you know how to find better stuff?
so I'm spending more time here in SN atm. Don't you feel it's wasting so much time when you are trying to be on every platform? It's like your mind is everywhere - focus could be a superpower.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @sebastix OP 26 Oct 2023
Your social graph should / could be a personal filter for finding good content. Providing serendipity.
This is a huge (and maybe the most exciting) challenge for many Nostr clients. Even BigTech is failing on this challenge imo. "It's not information overload, it's filter failure" - Clay Shirky The most valuable content I found was always on fora / bulletin boards. And with Google, before they became an advertising company.
I really like your way on how you're managing your time. It reminds me of this: https://world.hey.com/jason/the-difference-between-time-and-attention-bdd955eb
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @Natalia 26 Oct 2023
Your social graph should / could be a personal filter for finding good content. Providing serendipity.
Almost sounds like whenever I found a book I like, I would also read the books mentioned in it, like tracing his information source; And if I really like the author, I would go even further to learn about his family or what people he hangout with, haha, but I'm not so sure social media could work like that? and from my experience, many good stuff is usually hidden, you really need to do the work to dig.
"It's not information overload, it's filter failure" - Clay Shirky
yes, we have abundant information everywhere, but the good ones are almost drowning in the ocean of noise.
Good article!
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