"So now I am using Jungle and Primal, and some notifications show up on one but not the other." Experiencing the same (Coracle, Jumble, Amethyst), not sure how does this work, maybe it's about the number of RQ one can send per some rule (time, IP address, delay between each RQ). "Also both laggy, and i have to press buttons more than once sometimes." Yeah, there is no centralized server and so the client must ask dozens of relays for stuff (Amethyst display this nicely as it counts active vs total unique connections - it's a lot). Primal tend to work fastest because they cache for you (basically they ask for all before you go for a note and later present this as a snapshot of the reality you should see. But there is some delay before this is processed). Also nostr (the clients/Blossom servers - the file storage) usually does not enforce some compression on video/pics and so truly what you see sometimes is a large amount of unnecessary data that could be handled way more effectively. Primal cache server does this for you (it take time to process pictures and video). Coracle I believe does have also some cache service. Not sure how about others. This may be what causes some delay - mainly pulling large files from mostly free servers. "I get that there is no consensus for clients, but this is very unusable." - yup, and also there is no algorithm to give you the feed as I'm aware - sometimes there is a basic WoT score for filtering and that is all. Have no idea what is the state in this field (DVM model maybe failed to deliver this solution). Great function of Jumble is the '24h Pulse' - this giving me some sense what is happening. "It also seems to me that both clients could try to discover posts more aggressively." - they may but the counterparty (me for example) should serve them with some availability. I don't do it so far by paid relays (and abandoned my personal relay). Aggressive pooling will only get you banned on relays so it take time. "Is this a not-enough-resources-for-servers/relays problem, or something else?" - maybe and also the keeping up with the bots, DDoS, VPN misuse and the legality of being hosting provider (because of illegal/nasty content) is burdensome for many, especially the free relays. Also the smooth experience of optimized service (with all the CDN on the edge - TW, Wiki, FB) vs rough 'basement relay on perhaps residential connection' is to be felt. It is what it is. Hard to say for me - have no deeper insight in to this area. "Please, I am not interested in getting told how great this is, or how it’s not a problem for some of you, or that I should build it myself, or any equivalent defensive bullshit." Agree, more on that later. "I am someone who uses social media heavily, and I put a lot of effort and money into creating content, so I want an app that actually works." Try paid model, nostr.land - 14 days and they return the payment. "In fact, it needs to work at least 10x better than X for me to switch." What does that mean? Frankly I don't see the audience here because not many use Nostr so in terms of who will see the post maybe there is not enough real users. And as mentioned before there are no clever algorithms to feed the content to others they do not yet know about the existence of the content you provide in general. Meaning the strangers seeing and following later on because of. "I am genuinely asking these questions because I want to understand what is causing these problems." "There is no way I am the only person that has these problems and is bothered by them." - definitely not, for example Nostr PM messaging is still terrible. Also the support and debugging of the remote signers integration with clients. The search is clumsy. The notes saved are not transferable between clients. Nostr for me is mainly: - ability to own identity and create it by myself - maybe less hassle while migrating elsewhere (could pull up backup of notes, not so much the files as of now) - so possible interoperability - the nature of not needing to verify myself (no email, phone, ID or proof of payment) - possible anonymity/pseudonymity - the ability to attest that I post stuff and not being dependent that much on the hierarchy from 3rd party (meaning FB because the DNS says so because of SSL cert and what not) - infrastructure (VPN + FIPS > https://github.com/mmalmi/nostr-vpn) - ability to enforce my existence because could move into another relay (or back to my selfhosted) - maybe also social network - hard to boost this IRL I hope this is not by any means the 'defensive bullshit.' Keep it up; just not expect much in terms of engagement on the posts, I think.