another point that i think we miss a lot of the times - nostr doesn't need to succeed for the outcome of this effort to be positive. We'll push the boundaries and research of parallel structures, decentralized networks and models that work and don't work further. there's side effects that are coming out of it that would maybe never happen without it.
Would cashu get that much adoption that quickly if it wasnt a great solution for zaps? Would we have alternative app stores like @`Zapstore` if there wasn't a wot to attach it to? NWC would not exist and many other things as well
i think measuring nostr's success by the size of the social network growth is a poor metric because it is probably the hardest one to actually make a great experience given the years of indoctrination of algo-feed, instant delivery, 100s of millions in infrastructure networks that created a UX that decentralized protocol with tiny teams can hardly match.
How does one become a butterfly? she asked.
You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
Growth of nostr as social network requires a lot of user education, it targets the users on the margins so the target demographic is small, its the people who are already at the point of wanting to exit the current system, and there are few and far between. So its gonna be a long and hard battle to win over the normies. But it doesn't really matter.
We are (re)building communities, communication, payments, commerce, reputation and more, and we're building this for people who dream to be free and people who will arrive to that point further down the road. Building an entire parallel world for the 10s of thousands that we might are now is worth more than all the facebooks billions of users. Because its the 10s of thousands that actually own the network, they actively participate in it, offer services and things and are active members of the community.
Its the first days of a new world.
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