Maybe my goals aren't lofty enough, but I'm not asking for global adoption. Just having a place where I don't need to periodically track down peoples new "ghost" accounts because they've been banned for the nth time is enough for me. Nostr is a place where you won't lose contact with the content you want to see. That alone is incredible.

the nice thing about protocols and decentralization is that we can all have different goals and metrics to measure success. i believe we're on a path towards success, though i did wish it would accelerate from time to time. perhaps i wish more of the widespread tech community saw what we saw, even if the average user did not, yet.

Wen clout

Yeah, quantifying success is something companies do in order to project growth and inform how they organize. It's inherently difficult for a decentralized developer community to do the same, but maybe someone should do some vision casting. Maybe I should write a blog post.

I would love to read it.

Personally, I don't care about global adoption. I like that there are builders and nerds here. When the normie herd staggers their way here, They'll bring their poison with them. I like nostr being our Shangri La. Many will search for it, but will find it.

I'm loving NOSTR and the content I'm interested in agriculture, environment, etc... is growing.

our utopia won't last forever. eventually the honeymoon phase will die for even some of our largest bulls.

I'm a big believer that the most decentralized tech wins in the long run. Nostr feels very much like early Bitcoin. Bitcoin still has yet to make a significant dent in Fiat, mainly because of network effects of the latter, but has steadily progressed in the past 10+ years, accumulating value the entire time. I think Nostr is on the same trajectory... Including the "value" part, which will accrue directly in the form of zaps, something no other competitor has. My prediction: Nostr will provide lots of people with a comfortable revenue stream long before "global" adoption takes place.

What does the "end of the honeymoon" look like? It just becomes Xitter...? Somehow I doubt it.... We've never really had ~billion+ human social networks without "the algorithm" pushing buttons on the flow of interactions in the network. We can't really predict what an "algorithm-less" social media landscape of that scale would look like.

the honeymoon ends for most after about 30 days, though others seem sto stick it out a year or so before leaving. hardcore nostriches will never abadon and leave though. that said, before we talk about a billion+ nostriches, let's try to even hit 100K nostriches.

Well there are the standard metrics of DAU's, notes, etc; although I take the point of the inherent difficulty in doing this with as fragmented and open of a network as Nostr. Daily Zaps are another, perhaps more direct and literal indication of "value" accrued to the network.

That's good to hear — at some point I might ask you to compile a list of that stuff for onboarding purposes

We are here to stay for eternity 🇮🇹❤️🔥

Agreed

I understand we are early and patience pays off. I don't like the framing of "low-chance for businesses and protocols to succeed" though, because it doesn't help. Would you say this to your kid: - "For any creative endeavor you try, you probably won't make a penny out of it because 99.999% of projects fail or never mature into a product you can sell. But you should try nonetheless, everything's gonna be alright, keep it up kiddo! " OR - "Just do your best and listen to your curiosity. Have fun and work hard. You will see the fruit of your labor in due time. People fail sometimes, and that's alright because the best lessons in life are learned through mistakes!" Nostr seems like the best solution to digital identity, what else do we need to try? The rest takes care of itself because you just have to go down a path to see what's there. No amount of whiteboard planning will get you the answers. Some will come and go. Some will last. I am here to stay and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Is there already a client that looks like old MySpace? Because millennials are feeling pretty nostalgic for simpler times on the Internet (aka without the overlords).

@MK Fain is building, though mostly on the back burner, a myspace alternative.

Building what ?

How many companies invest in it ? In Nostr protocols .

If nostr "fails" it still won't have been time wasted, so I agree with you. I'm mostly talking about the tendency fixate on current user numbers, as if that has anything to do with the eventual usefulness of the technology. I was here when it was all just devs building a thing and no one else cared. My motivation hasn't changed since then, and won't change unless and until either 1. someone comes up with a better solution, or 2. the benefits of social media prove to be outweighed by the negative externalities, even when decoupled from centralized control and incentives.

Usage numbers are like GDP, they only indirectly correlate with real value ("wealth"). Assessing real "success" in human terms requires us to adopt a measure of human flourishing that is subject to an over-arching qualitative framework of value.

precisely

Well "usage" and "zaps" are distinct, the latter being a better reference for value and/or wealth. I agree that it's economic value, but I would still argue that that is a reasonable framework for assessing the value of a project. At the risk of being "vulgar libertarian" about it, I do think that freely-traded economic value is a rough proxy to how important a thing is to society.

Imo , we've already achieved success. The tools we need for freedom of speech and financial transactions are available and can be used by anyone. Just like Bitcoin provides a means for unrestricted financial transactions, Nostr offers a way to exercise free speech without needing permission. While it would be ideal if everyone wanted to use these tools and create a better world, as a freedom maximalist, I'm content with the current state of affairs. I've opted out of the traditional systems and others can do the same once they start looking for alternative solutions

amazing

Younger gen crave for over night success 🙏 .. but you got to season the pot to get the real taste .. View quoted note →

Is global adoptin even technically possible? Relays would all die with their hard drives overflowing after just one single day of Twitter-scale data.

nah. text is small.

That's what the outbox model and friends are for

Didn't other protocol attempts like Mastadon also reach this phase in the past? What are the core USPs you think #nostr got it right to increase its chances to stay?

I appreciate you brother. As soon as I figure out how to get these zaps working again, I'll hit you up. I can receive but can't zap. Lnurl says outdated. Even when empty. Could this be why?

It is achievable if we split the data into multiple relays

We don't have just text here. And even if - one day on Twitter generates far more than 500 Million tweets. Let's say they were only 140 chars (which they aren't any more for many users), that's 560 bytes - that would be 260 GB *per day*. I doubt there is even a single Nostr relay that could handle a week of data, let alone a month.

I would could try to do that. I still think Zaps are the biggest onboard. I tried to get into nostr back in 2023 or 2022, but it was when I first got zapped that I really started using it. I guess I'm a mercenary.

Zaps are the universal solvent around here, they even got me to finally *get* the whole thing back when. Now I'm just a pixel hoping for a few sparks to keep the lights on. ⚡ (If you wanna help keep the lights on, here's that lightning address again: sparepicolo55@walletofsatoshi.com)

What can we plebs do to help Nostr?

I'm not sure what you mean by "lnurl says outdated". Sending zaps doesn't have anything to do with the lnurl attached to your profile, but rather with your sending wallet.

Keep complaining to the devs, and tell people who want/need it

I put the wallet info in these fields and it will receive but won't send. Thought it might have to do with the outdated message

Maybe send a screenshot of what you see when you send?

Just spinning wheel where zap icon is

Ah, ok, this has always been difficult. Your payments are likely going through (are they, if you check your wallet?), but the zap isn't showing up where coracle is looking for it. What wallet are you using to zap?

Sorry if I mislead. using amethyst. And wos

@Vitor Pamplona @Wallet of Satoshi any ideas? I frequently run into the same issue on Coracle/Alby. I don't think it's my implementation (any more), I can only guess that the zapper isn't delivering the zap receipt to the proper relays on time

Yeah, the zapper didn't send the confirmation. I wonder if @Parallel Structures has too many inbox relays that the zapper from Alby doesn't know what to do... Amethyst does create the zap request with ALL of them, for all involved parties in the zap, so the list can be massive and may even hit the maximum json size limit in some relays (given that the zap request goes inside the zap event). @Parallel Structures see if you drop the outbox/inbox relay list to just the 3 that you trust the most helps.

The greatest revolutions in human communication started with builders who had the audacity to work toward 0% odds. While others demand instant results, you’re constructing the infrastructure of freedom itself. History belongs to those who think in decades, not quarters. Keep building what others can’t yet imagine. We are VERY early. View quoted note →

Nope. Mastodon was worse, at least for me.

Mastodon is fine for what it is, but it gives community organizers way more power. Nostr's cryptographic identities and multi-master architecture are a huge improvement. I wrote a book on this:

Building Nostr - A Guide for Developers

Well, we do just have text, but that other stuff still needs hosting so i get your point. Two remarks: 1: there is no need for everything to be on a single relay. Sure there will be some bigger ones but the whole point of Nostr is that all this stuff is scattered, whilst users just being able to get the stuff they want from where it resides. I guess you have misconceptions on what the relay model behind Nostr actually is, not really your fault because its not clear to many, not even many devs, atleast not at the start. 2: relays are just webservers. The fact twitter can do it, is proof its technically possible to do. (I get it costs a lot of money etc.etc. but for that i refer back to point 1, my point here is that there is nothing special about relays)

Don't I select the relays I want to post my nodes to? Potentially dozens of relays. So ALL those relays are supposed to keep my nodes, correct? The list of well known relays is quite short. Most users use the same clients and those clients have the same relays in their default settings. Mainstream NPCs will never change those settings or even care to learn the word "relay". So wouldn't it be the burden of a handful of relays to store everything because every user has those set as the defaults? And isn't the point of Nostr that the data is stored *redundantly*, so actually we want *many* relays to store all the data. I still don't see how this amount of data wouldn't overwhelm the few good established relays today. I guess the solution is that every user must run their own relay and just store *their own* notes (and potentially those of first and second order friends?). That means that every user must be a paying user so that in the background we can spin up a relay for them and have the cost covered? People already refuse to pay for twitter, so they surely won't pay for Nostr. That means there must be a way to show them ads - which is probably very tricky?

Yes, but it's more nuanced than that. People can self host, pay, uncle jim, use hubs that are subsidized by nostr businesses, post to community relays, host follows/follower relays, etc. There's no single model, which is good for a self organizing network. We just have to make sure to provide the affordances for the network to organize.

Your intuition is right that there is no way the userbase can bear the cost of running the network, including relays, media servers and just the money that developers with kids to feed and bills to pay need to be able to devote their time to Nostr and not something else. That would all amount to a ridiculous amount of money per user, but those things all are needed for the network to function. And with the spam, ddos and even legal attacks that would come with larger scale those running costs would get even higher.

Glad to hear that! One more thing: to me, nostr is not social media but the digital identity layer of the internet. To me, social media as it is on big tech platforms has failed long ago. But to build useful apps (and I mean literally anything) on sound identities is worth the time and effort.

Gradually then suddenly…

>So ALL those relays are supposed to keep my nodes, correct? >> no, incorrect. No such expectation actually exist, it all depends on the relay, they are free to have whatever policy they want. But if what it stores and for how long it stores it (and to whom it makes it available). >I guess the solution is that every user must run their own relay and just store *their own* notes (and potentially those of first and second order friends?). >> something like that, but instead of going straight for the hyperbole of "every user", you could simply realize there is this vast spectrum op potiential relay types. > Mainstream NPCs will never change those settings or even care to learn the word "relay". >> you say that, but i am not buying it. The NPCs know what a website is, and they know how to find one. Relays could be seen as websites (but better). You project your understanding of relays from their marginalized status in current client UI/UX, probably combined with the fact you (nor much of anyone for that matter) have any intution for the paradigm just yet. >People already refuse to pay for twitter, so they surely won't pay for Nostr. >> dont compare Nostr with twitter directly; compare it with every webservice out there. How many people pay for twitter? Email? Etc. You get the level of service you pay for. Also note that a large part of the internet just exists without users paying directly for it, nor inderectly via advertising; but by then fact someone has some other reason to run a website (+the fact its cheap). > isn't the point of Nostr that the data is stored *redundantly*, >> sort of, the point is more that it CAN be stored redudantly, and things are not space nor time dependend. So its not just 'it CAN exists in multiple places' but also 'it can re-appear in whatever place in whatever moment in time' (note that neither are case with the current web, every reupload, both in location and time constitute a *new* thing being uploaded, not authentically the *same* thing) >so actually we want *many* relays to store all the data. >> no that does not follow. First of all not every bit of data is as important. Many notes could suffer the fate of being hosted on a single relay for only 24 hours and it would be fine. Other notes warrent to be coveted by many till the end of time due to their deep significance. Again, there is a spectrum here. So to conclude: not every relay is the same, nor is every note the same; but any note could be on any relay, and it would be just the same.

nostr://nevent1qqs2kqgu2feplmd7f826xah3tyyrww8468pehmw48gx4wleqesl624cgdazpd

Well explained