Replies (101)
I don’t buy that they dont care about censorship resistance when they are literally trying to save their asses by making a platform that doesn’t depend on Google making decisions.
It’s not only the UX. So much has to be done at protocol level to accommodate this kind of content creators.
Dead on… there still isn’t even a proper solution for key management for new users who don’t yet understand what private keys are. I have faith that it will come and that in time we will build tools and apps that take advantage of sovereignty of your social graph.
The magic will come one day where there are a group of users who don’t even know that that they’re using Nostr, and don’t care about censorship resistance. At some point they’ll realize that their private keys can open the doors to so much more than they ever imagined.
Max DeMarco
Uncomfortable Nostr Reality check:
I've tried to Nostr-pill all my YouTube friends (some of them have incredible amounts of subs), but none of them care about the censorship resistance or decentralization. Even though they know Nostr exists, they have no incentive yet to come here. Their audience would follow them anywhere, but they need the tools to create community communications.
It's a sad reality, but it all comes down to usability, UX, and ultimately the easiness of paying and signing up for the community. None of these can afford to have a sign-up problem or issues with someone being interested in joining the community/their platform. It needs to work flawlessly and feel and look professional. Some of them charge $3-5k a year just to get access to this closed space, and people are willing to pay for this.
Another big pain point is community management. All of these YouTubers create these platforms to help their audience have a safe place to communicate with each other and build their own tribe.
Nostr is capable of facilitating all of this - we're just not there yet. We need to somehow invest so much more into UX and design.
All of this will come when the time is due. So, knowing that all of this is possible and that ultimately, Nostr will be powering most of these via the social graph, is what makes me extremely bullish. But also, let's not get ahead of ourselves and expect them to come already.
The UX and features are not there yet for these people. I am more than happy to help anybody trying to make this a reality. I want nothing more than having these people join Nostr. But I also totally understand their pain points. So, if you're a dev or a company working on this, please feel free to reach out - I can tell you all the issues they told me. Or just tell me how to best do this; maybe I can jump on a podcast so the issues are open-sourced for the whole community to hear.
#nostrdesign #asknostr
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The big channels care about deplatforming already, that’s why they start making their own platforms. But this just alienates them from the rest of the world. Sooner or later people once again will get tired of being in a bunch of closer communities and will look for tools to yet again curate content from across platforms.
It's all correct. But nostr is only 2 years old. Remember YouTube in 2008? Was it what it is now? No. Because it needs time to evaluate what is needed.
this is just one step in a process of improvement, next step to look for censored channels with a better reason to invest.
This is just your early, ugly feedback. Everything has this at so early a stage.
The tech will grow alongside the user need, and this is what shapes the adoption curve.
So basically…
They do care and they do pay devs to create CLOSED solutions. This means they don’t know about nostr because you could pay a dev just the same to do it on nostr.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. The core issue isn’t just the technology itself but how it’s presented to users. Many creators and their audiences expect platforms to be intuitive and seamless, with a strong focus on UX. Nostr has the potential to deliver this, but it’s clear there’s still work to do in making it user-friendly and attractive enough to draw in larger communities.
The challenge of getting creators to adopt Nostr doesn’t lie in the principles of decentralization or censorship resistance — most creators understand the importance of these. It’s about the tools, the ease of use, and the professional polish that Nostr currently lacks. Until Nostr provides an experience that rivals the closed platforms these creators are accustomed to (especially when those platforms generate significant revenue), it will be difficult to convince them to make the jump.
I agree that investing in UX and community tools is crucial. If Nostr can match or exceed the functionality and ease of use found on other platforms, the value proposition of decentralization and censorship resistance will become much more compelling. In the meantime, I’d love to collaborate on any efforts to address these pain points, whether it’s contributing to design ideas, providing feedback, or helping to spread awareness through content like podcasts.
The potential is there, and I’m excited for the future, but we must be patient and practical in how we get there. Let’s keep building!
Bear with me on this, as I may be a little out of touch. I cannot stand tiktok, facebook, youtube, and instagram, so there could be some innovation I am unaware of, but I thought content creators published content on their channels and the platforms gave them ad revenue share from all the views they generate, plus additional income from paid subscribers for paywalled content. I am mostly aware of how youtube works. Out of 2.49 billion active users on youtube, the channel subscribers who 'directly' pay content creators for memberships are only 100 million, which is about 4%. Memberships tend to be from $1 to $50, but most often are about $5, and of that 30% goes to youtube. So, unless you have millions of views and play a ton of annoying ads, you don't make much. Also, just few video content creators make quality educational or entertaining content (which AI can now do in minutes), while the majority is mindnumbing crap that is toxic and should not exist, but is easier to create and appeals to people's lizzard brains.
So, do we need a cambrian explosion of crap content on Nostr? Do we even want Nostr to become youtube, why? Without ads on Nostr, content creators won't make much. Only 4% of 2.49 billion users pay content creators.
You mention: "Some of them charge $3-5k a year just to get access to this closed space, and people are willing to pay for this."
What does this mean, where is that?
They need more pain.
🎯
You know what's great about nostr? We're so early and it's already far better than a lot of platforms in a lot of ways. I remember early days of most platforms and they had nothing on nostr's early days. I love seeing the excitement and development going on and I'm a huge believer that if nostr can be this good this early in its infancy, I can only begin to imagine how incredible it will be five years from now 💯🙌✨
Why would anyone come here when its just a bunch of bitcoiners?
This has to happen naturally, and it will.
There's literally going to be no alternative when the rest of the internet is getting shut down.
this is true but there is a lack of practical attitudes towards general usability and security of nostr, the replyguy is a perfect example, we have had no spam almost 2 years because nobody thinks we are stupid enough to fall for it (which is kinda cool, and all) but as a result the commercialization of nostr based systems is also suffering because commercial use cases require access control
The reality is nostr is competing with the network effects of established and well capitalised social media companies. VCs love network effects because they are a wonderful moat for a business.
Unless there is an order of magnitude improvement in some domain, nostr is destined to remain a niche platform for enthusiasts of freedom technology.
Censorship resistance doesn’t mean anything for those who are not getting censored.
Freedom means nothing for those who are happy with being enslaved.
Looking at the state of the world, are you bullish on people breaking out of their reality boxes and seeing through the veil, or would they be happier to remain ignorant?
YouTubers don’t build their communities on YouTube they build an audience which they then concert to communities on sites like skool, discord etc.
There they build different incentives to people to join - masterminds - workshops whatever. This is where the value for their viewers lie and why they are okay with paying so much. The ytber provides free value on yt and then really juicy value lies in the communities.
Ad revs aren’t even the big driver of all of this.
Convert*
Bingo. It’s the value you can create with someone’s attention
People make millions selling services and products to their audiences
Ad rev share from YT is pathetic for most audience sizes
I don't know whether it's really a problem. It's like saying in 2013 about #Bitcoin that all the big financial people aren't interested. You can't expect mainstream to be interested in the innovator phase.
We are extremely early. #Nostr will have its network effect on the protocol layer. The incentives will get stronger while the network grows and the network will grow harder while the incentives get stronger.
Relax and enjoy the bootstrapping phase.
this.
This is a problem that we've had for a year and a half and it's always the same responses.
Censorship resistance and decentralization are important but most people don't care about that. They just want their tools to work when they need them. They don't care about the potential. They don't care about the morality. They just want to do their job or task, or communicate without issues or struggles.
But what I can say and I believe you'll recognize too, is that we as an ecosystem are improving. Every aspect is improving. Tools are getting better, from experience to functionality.
Ultimately, the issues we have are all hard tasks for decentralized and grassroots movements to solve when there's little clear direction or roadmaps. It's probably not going to be solved by one developer or small teams, at least in the near future. They need a lot of time. Alternatively, this is going to take a lot of manpower and a lot of money.
We'll get there. It's just going to be a very slow push forward until something changes and causes acceleration.
Until then keep trying and keep taking notes on what we need to do to recruit these builders and community creators. Someone needs to see where we're lacking and beat on the improvement drum.
Love you brother.
Valid points Max. 🤝
Great response. Very rational. 👏
This part stands out…
“Ultimately, the issues we have are all hard tasks for decentralized and grassroots movements to solve when there's little clear direction or roadmaps. It's probably not going to be solved by one developer or small teams, at least in the near future. They need a lot of time. Alternatively, this is going to take a lot of manpower and a lot of money.”
I think the best thing is a podcast so that the topics are open source and can be heard by the entire community as many times as necessary.
The content creator economy will come to nostr eventually. But needs time and FOCUSED effort.
I believe that we often talk about things not being private or decentralized enough but fail to acknowledge that real life is not perfect. We gotta solve a problem that exists with a 10x improvement FOR SOME PPL. NOT EVERYONE. Just enough to sustain operations.
In this context UX is less pressing of an issue but there is no excuse for making mistakes on rudimentary things:
MOST NOSTR APPS LACK BASIC USABILITY. PERIOD.
Let's do our best and don't fool ourselves. We can improve. We can also get help to progress faster. That's what I do on multiple fronts at this point.
It only takes one app to solve a problem with 10x improvement. Others will follow suit. But I have given up always trying to adhere to newest protocol "trends" because I have a problem to solve.
Nip04 dm-s being one example. In my app users connect via the Deal-process anyway. I'm prompting users to execute contracts elsewhere. Good enough to me FOR NOW. This is how we get results. Getting the crucial stuff right, not spreading ourselves thin.
Last but not least, *most* content creators clearly don't have a crucial problem. They are just complaining every now and then. We need to seek out those who might have vested interest in a no-bs, more Freedom-oriented solution.
@Max DeMarco told about ppl with humongous followings. That's NOT the criteria I would look for.
True. There’s only one way through hell though - and that’s the keep going.
Nostr UX sucks in comparison to what else is out there. I’m certain
@Satlantis: Social Events 1.0 will also suck. But that’s the only way, with limited resources, that we’ll get anywhere. Gotta keep building, iterating, refining.
That being said, I 100% agree that nowhere near enough focus is placed on the user. Right now, it’s all on development. Which may be warranted. I just wonder when the shift begins to happen…
NOSTR isn’t for everyone. But it is for anyone.
Yes. Those who are principled-driven and motivated by more than the pavlovian tic tok response-are the ones who make technology move to begin with. The tic tokers and "influencers" 😂 and grifters always ride the coattails of the technology created on principle. Exactly like Bitcoin, the Internet, the auto, electricity, everything. These technologies provide the ultimate "positive externality". As long as the principled people stick with it, it will succeed.
It's true. It seems blasphemy in the Bitcoin culture, but centralized services are good, it just depends on the context and the needs.
Also, you can not verify everything all the time. Sometimes is extremely exhausting or near impossible. The best human societies are built on mutual trust. The key is trust must not be given easily, it must be gained with hard work and reputation.
Ps. 3k per year, damm.
Nostr isn't for 2nd tier people
You're absolutely right
ZAP.STREAM
Totally agree! I am trying to do my part and this also means to recognize we’re not there yet. But we’ll get there together
brother. Big love 🧡
it will come. in due course
Everyone is not you. Keep in mind that lots of people don't have internal monologs. They're literally NPC's. They'll never be able to wrap their heads around what NOSTR actually is, and that's ok. I think there's always been a certain percentage of people who understand things and a large percentage of people of people who will never know fuck about shit. It is what it is.
Nostr is on the front lines in the battle for freedom, privacy and sovereignty. It may be a bit ugly and rough around the edges at times but war is not pretty. Some like to stay in back where it’s safe.
You get nostr at the price you deserve.
Very well put when you said (paraphrase): people would not care unless they are being censored or their decades worth of work are censored and lost their account.
People would not care if they are happy to continue to be enslaved. 👌
I understand that UX for average non-tech savvy would matter most to them. "Convenience vs censorship-resistant". I am more concerned on the security and longetivity of nostr which is critical to nostr's success. Early adopters understand the UX but let's not forget that we were bombarded by spam weeks' back. Thankfully these are friendly and harmless. I doubt if the adversary would be as kind as the former. Whilst I acknowledge nostr's need for improvement, let's address the basic non-functional requirements in relay and client level. Then we can talk about UX.
Incentive wise, the zap incentives is in itself value for value. This takes a different mindset shift. If we compare nostr to Youtube it will fail because it has different model. Youtube relies on ads and Nostr is not focus on ads but on zaps and freedom of expression.
Nostr sucks. It is in principle a very good idea, but during the years I’ve been here the visible improvements, as I see it, are marginal. In the same period(since end of 2022) X has imroved HUGELY..
Hopefully Nostr in time will become a reliable and interesting space for video, podcasts, social media etc.
Loooong way to go though.
Patreon is what many of my artist friends use for their “followers”
Rome wasn’t built in a day…
Humans need to first want the world to change to benefit the most of humanity & not just theirselves.
People need to take self-accountability in their own minds to decide to change things. Reeducation is needed on multiple fronts.
I’ve worked to understand how protocols, clients etc work. Oftentimes, it appears #devs don’t work together even if they are seeking similar solutions. Bounty hunting may have worked in some parts of technology. As an outsider: I see a bunch of people who for various reasons don’t want project management nor oversight.
Cool. But don’t get big mads when others prove what’s wrong. For good or bad, #devs were warned that attacks should be expected. I know because I spoke about it as well as others.
Someone initiated some & came here & admitted it. Then it became clear many of the devs were not prepared to recognize that as expected.
Deaths from the information war continue to rise. Brainwashing & narrative warfare will become more targeted to individuals.
Keyboard warriors need to be better prepared. Timing will be considered by those who seek to destroy. People need to understand taking the ego hit by “friendly-fire” will come.
Oftentimes, there is a loss in understanding & communication barriers. Many times I’ve made more than one point on a topic & most don’t see how it’s all interconnected. Fair enough: I lack understanding of many things & seek to understand.
Maybe that’s the overarching issue. Humans always human. As an optimist I’ll always believe in the good of humanity. Many humans share similar values but lack the tools & resources to work together toward a common purpose.
Obviously 🙄, I’m fine taking all the shrapnel hits others have sent me. But it does get tiring having to deal with people who react like a spoiled child. Myself included. 😂
I'm trying to use Nostr but get totally frustrated. I'm not technically inclined, but fairly computer literate. One thing I hate about Nostr is that if you've make a mistake on what you post, you CAN'T delete the post or edit it. This is HUGE in my world!
This is why I'm developing
@npub1j7kz...e7fr and focusing on UX. It will be a long and narrow path I'm sure, but it is also fun to work on a project that I know is very much needed
View quoted note →My TLDR – at the end of the day people you mention are focused on attention and monetization. They don’t believe investing in this platform will benefit them in the long run... It is understandable, takes unorthodox mind to understand nostr. Plus they have channels with tons of subscribers to manage, and that’s a lot of work.
They’ll come around once proven wrong…
As a fellow YouTuber.
I didn’t start uploading to Nostr until I got deplatformed, it was only then that I felt I had the need to invest in building content up Nostr.
Even after I got the YT channel back we continue to post on here and alternative platforms like Rumble / X
YouTube platform is slick, convenient, and that’s where most of the volume is. Until I went through the scare we went through from a business perspective I never had the need to use alternatives.
That’s probably what’s going on with your YouTube friends.
yes
only what is replaced can be supplanted.
🙌 thank the Lord some people get it. Yes this is it. Make the best product and let them get to love the benefits on the back end.
Aristotle said that people are slaves for their own nature. Nostr will always be a niche thing. Most of the people don’t care about freedom as long they can keep doing their under the sheets wrong stuff.
At least Rome Vigiles took citizen complaints seriously and knew how to get rid of the ReplyGuy. ;)
What has your generous donation been used to fund exactly? Has anything at all come from it?
Yea totally and I certainly made a good few mistakes on my post and I was like dang
Freedom of choice is what makes us human right
a lot of this post is false
Nostr's potential is huge, but UX is holding it back. 💻🔓
They aren't Bitcoiners. Once you understand that fiat is a fool's game, you don't want to "monetize" in fiat. Orange pill, then purple pill.
Orange pill. Then purple pill, my friend.
most youtubers think about getting more attention. not decentralization and freedom. as such they are inherently narcissistic because they only care what helps them.
nostr is past the point of listening to this, but it would have done much better in the beginning to ignore the self focused influencer types, hype addicts, billionaires, the fame seeking, and focus entirely on its original goals, feature set, and stability. But the hard way is also a good teacher.
People publishing their content on YouTube or similar platforms are hoping to earn by doing so ;although the algo doesn’t allow that for ordinary people. That’s why as long as Nostr clients are not offering the same opportunities offered by other platforms, it would be considered as a waste of time (zaps might be seen a joke in comparison). Also, many people subscribe to YouTube channels because it’s for free.
Creators are the core of every social network. 1% of creators produce 90%+ of content people want to consume. Without creators a project could be anything but a social network
Just my 2 cents experience on that:
Last year I’ve started a project
GitHub
GitHub - viktorvsk/saltivka: 🇺🇦 Friendly Nostr Relay in Ruby with UI
🇺🇦 Friendly Nostr Relay in Ruby with UI. Contribute to viktorvsk/saltivka development by creating an account on GitHub.
to address this issue in particular, to build more tools for creators
However, I’ve found zero interest in the community to go this way. Most of the feedback usually “its a better place without influencers here”, “nostr already won and they will join when they understand, same as with bitcoin”, “I like nostr to be a safe place for smart people and I don’t want millions of idiots here”
So I’ve stopped building this part of nostr, because it requires coordination between relay devs, clients devs, ui/ux designers and operations teams, so I don’t see I can handle its all on my own
Audiences don’t always follow you. After Stefan Moleneaux banning less than 1% followed him.
Nostr will have to grow organically and as censorship increases adoption will improve.
Majority of people do not change easily even if under pressure.
It is a straw that breaks the camel’s back situation.
When I stand still my speed is 0 km/h, when I walk its 4 km/h, when I run its sometimes 15 km/h, wow, just a little bit of practice and I can throw my car away and commute 50 km just by running really fast!
Yes. 100%
This is why nostr needs a marketing committee of sorts. Our Devs are great but they have blind sides. We all do. Nostr won’t be adopted in mass until the user experience is seamless and easy.
We need Joe Rogan he does actually make a lot of sense
Ok if humanity can't solve that then yeah it's fucked.
Because nostr isn't just some bitcoiners and antivaxxers, it's the only free way of speaking for humans who aren't in shouting distance - the central thread of the whole of future humanity.
Or did I miss some alternative way to escape the inevitable total control of everything that can be controlled?
are numbers really the need or quality?
"quality never goes out of style" levi strauss
"build it they will come"
we are building a new alternative, it will take time to understand the needs and desires of the future. free market analysis.
trying to hang on to an old world whilst you build a new one is rather like staying in the swamp until it is drained. sure it will be much better when it is dry and full of healthy vegetation. in the interim you suffer the perils of the swamp.
focus attention where you want things to grow.
GM 🙃
Perhaps instead of trying to convert established YouTubers who don’t need NOSTR—yet, we should focus on the emerging generation of creators who see the value in decentralized communities. As they build substantial following their gravity will be the tipping point that collapses the status quo?
YouTube/Rumble is the final boss.
Zaps are cute, but paid subs is what they all want.
I now understand what UX means. If you have any advice for a beginner please share
Too naive. Creators need a revenue stream that is better than advertising and data capture.
An opt-in ad-revenue module is needed. Let people choose the algos they want.
Wow ⚡️
I would also very happily help build out a suite if creator tools on Nostr
Similar experience to yourself max having made podcasts
I see the same problem. Long term the open network wins, which is something to reality get behind
I don’t think Nostr is at the level of replacing YouTube as you say, but definitely it’s already having the ability and UX design to replace X (Twitter). Maybe we need a Nostrube…
It’s a good observation, I also assumed censorship resistance would be a primary reason to shift towards nostr, but if you’ve never been censored or agree with most consensus narratives you don’t have a pain point around that specifically. However, as you articulate so well in your nostr social media documentary, most people are FED UP with the addictive mindless scrolling and heavy advertising. 1 in 4 posts is an ad on Instagram…
For folks who don’t value privacy/censorship resistance you could take the angle of owning your social graph, not being subject to algorithmic changes, the engaged community and the ability to natively zap⚡️ sats. Fountain is web2 platform that helps bridge the gap a bit, especially if they already have an RSS feed. In the end, as you know, creators have limited bandwidth so if they dont see the value there’s no reason to distract from the bread and butter on YouTube.
Nostr is great now but fast forward 2-3 years with the tools and projects coming down the pipeline, it will be a much easier pitch 👌
cheers max appreciate your insight.
Let me know if I can help, I have extensive media production, podcast and youtube experience.
💪🏻
so nostr needs a blender like treatment.
knowing the tricks they use to control people's thinking is the main thing
nostr is a protocol that can be used to that end on the internet
the total control is not inevitable, not once in history ever has a tyrannical system lasted, because people find ways
great points! If I want to post a long form video I'm stuck with a limitation of 100 MB. How can I upload a Video with a few GIGs?
Agreed, life will find a way, but what I think inevitable is that total control will be sought.
oh, evil motherfuckers gonna evil, and stupidmotherfuckers gonna not believe evil exists
I agree, Im just a regular average person. Although I am excited about BTC and everything that it represents, I do not know what to do with NOSTR. I think there has to be more than just Bitcoin stuff here. All the stuff should be here.
If you can’t delete posts Nostr is cooked. That is a non-starter for most.
I think this is really sad
My question is... Do we realy want and need all that influencer stuff here? What problem do they solve? How are they contributing to society? How will we know, that they will not somehow cheat the network so they will get more engagement? Also serious questions.
The majority want things to just work. “Just work” is way more important than censorship resistant for the vast majority.
I would also like to believe in magic, that’s the sort of tribalism that keeps Nostr from growing and thus becoming meaningful
Max DeMarco
Uncomfortable Nostr Reality check:
I've tried to Nostr-pill all my YouTube friends (some of them have incredible amounts of subs), but none of them care about the censorship resistance or decentralization. Even though they know Nostr exists, they have no incentive yet to come here. Their audience would follow them anywhere, but they need the tools to create community communications.
It's a sad reality, but it all comes down to usability, UX, and ultimately the easiness of paying and signing up for the community. None of these can afford to have a sign-up problem or issues with someone being interested in joining the community/their platform. It needs to work flawlessly and feel and look professional. Some of them charge $3-5k a year just to get access to this closed space, and people are willing to pay for this.
Another big pain point is community management. All of these YouTubers create these platforms to help their audience have a safe place to communicate with each other and build their own tribe.
Nostr is capable of facilitating all of this - we're just not there yet. We need to somehow invest so much more into UX and design.
All of this will come when the time is due. So, knowing that all of this is possible and that ultimately, Nostr will be powering most of these via the social graph, is what makes me extremely bullish. But also, let's not get ahead of ourselves and expect them to come already.
The UX and features are not there yet for these people. I am more than happy to help anybody trying to make this a reality. I want nothing more than having these people join Nostr. But I also totally understand their pain points. So, if you're a dev or a company working on this, please feel free to reach out - I can tell you all the issues they told me. Or just tell me how to best do this; maybe I can jump on a podcast so the issues are open-sourced for the whole community to hear.
#nostrdesign #asknostr
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Chances are the client you are using he helped fund
Where could I find that information? I’m curious
personally don't think rumble should be equated with YouTube. rumble isn't evil for starters
Not evil at all. Elon & rumble are doing a lot for free speech.
if it sucks ao much why are you here? 😉. perhaps it will grow and get better organically... as govts continue to censor and destroy free speech
YT is the final boss because it has a monopoly on online video
