121 sats \ 4 replies \ @TheBTCManual 2 Jan \ on: Substack may not exist in 2030 without adopting Nostr nostr
I don't see something like Substack moving to nostr, they're already on their 5th round of funding with guys like A16z involved so you more likely to see crypto should they start to explore this space, rather than bitcoin and nostr
I think that nost has to create its own brands and clients, offering alternatives and see if users want to migrate over, key management isn't something the average person is comfortable with yet, its still a huge barrier to entry and tech companies are all about how to reduce barriers, get users in drive growth and manage churn
Yup. NOSTR will continue to be little more than a niche hobbyist type thing, unless/until they are able to find a way to more seamlessly incorporate the use of key management. It should be entirely behind the scenes, so that users don't even have to know it's something being utilized until it is absolutely necessary.
Otherwise, forget about it. Just look at how few people use things which are objectively useful like PGP for e-mail/communication, to sign with their actual keys. But then look at how many people use supposedly secure e-mail services like protonmail, mailfence, etc.
This is the direction NOSTR needs to go in, if it wants to be successful. There simply are not enough people within the Bitcoin & related nerd communities to sustain it otherwise.
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Yeah I am with you, while key management users will grow over time, I don't see it becoming mainstream anytime soon, Bitcoin has the obvious incentive of hey its your money and even then people aren't all that jazzed about it, so why would hey its your content be any different, short of like mass de-platforming or something like that
I guess apps can offer nostr as an account/onboarding service, so you can still do your usual email and all that other stuff but have nostr as a fall back.
If nostr could become something like an OAuth service that an alternative to Gooogle, Microsoft and Facebook, maybe there is something there
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People will learn. And solutions will come. Look how far the protocol has come in 2.5 years. The pace is astounding. We already essentially have feature parity with Twitter/Reddit/YouTube & more. I don’t buy it that this thing fails, because it’s too complex or too small or that we won’t figure these things out.
People will innovate and improve the key management. Just like the community will bring “actually private” email to Nostr.
Every other implementation of ‘decentralised’ content, creates a single point of failure, plus is limited to social media use case. Sure, we’ll see people setup their own Discourse server or Elements server (by Matrix). The communities themselves will likely have their domain and hosting taken down. Needing to reupload elsewhere and communicate the new site to their community. The architecture is using old thinking, but the world is different now with Nostr.
Yes, it’s early and my comments may be a little shy of the mark, but Substack is really in great danger of becoming the next Myspace in my opinion. They depend on others to not squeeze them, when the incentives are there for them to do just that. You’re probably right that they’ll either try and exit by going public or they’ll create their own token and avoid Nostr altogether. That’s fine too, something else will fill that void they create.
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Things always move fast in the beginning, there is hype, enthusiasm, and exploring new ideas, but it is the slow grind to product market fit that makes things more than just a GitHub page
Having a good idea, doesn't always translate into a disruption that can break a worldwide network effect IE email or centralised oAuth. But based on what i've seen so far something like nsec bunker could be an option, if all clients adopt it and add it to onboarding or account management, then it helps bring in users, and they now have a nostr connected account
As for services like Substack, why wouldn't they just kick off "problematic creators" and move on, those creators can move to a more anti-fragile service like nostr, while Substack continues on.
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