I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if I had been chosen. That would never happen in the first place, but just being able to experiment with the protocol and some test clients and environments like Bluesky did. That could probably make us arrive at clear description of what we now call "outbox model", for example, before launching Nostr. And if I was able to work together with some smart leftists on the issue, maybe we could have figured a nice way to make relays more proeminent in the protocol as home for communities and "safe" spaces, as natural curators of content and discovery layers for what later would be handled by the outbox model of following people. And if it had all worked well then maybe we would have built a nice protocol that would still be decentralized and censorship-resistant but would at the same time appeal to leftists and libertarians and everything in between and we would get a ton of media boost and maybe be ready for mass adoption and not face any criticisms from any side except from Jeffrey Epstein friends and Nostr would be named Bluesky and be bigger than all the centralized platforms combined today. But of course this wouldn't happen in this way at all. What would happen instead?

We can probably still build all of this...

I was picturing it in my mjnd while reading it.. it would have been amazing, but not sure how much feasible. Probably that's why didn't go even close to that, since most of them weren't ready for it. All what you explained can still happen if the Bluesky team or the head there wants to. Create a way and place where devs nostr devs can interect and discuss with the rest and show them now after that time what they have achieved on the freedom and censorship level with nostr. Things is are they (Bluesky) ready to not have the power to censor or decide what's wrong/right/censorable.

What would have happenend instead is an over-spec'd base protocol as a result of internal politicing. Its not just that 'lefty' people want moderated environments for themselves and are happy to let everyone else be; they will haunt you to the ends of the earth to gain some sort of controll, or the idea of controll, because only then can they rest easy. Never get into a situation where these people can veto what you do, because it is a prayer without end before they are satisfied. The only option is to confront them with a fait accompli that they can optimize for their own preferences, but simply can't dictate outside of that.