Thread

NOSTR also has the problem of being seemingly entirely populated by bots and widely devoid of organic, user-generated content---problems that BlueSky nor the Fediverse "lack".

It's genuinely pretty bad that most of the real, organic, actual user-generated content on NOSTR is just content being bridged over from the Fediverse and is essentially "read only" in that regard. That is, unfortunately, very symptomatic of a "dead" network.

100% agreed. I try to check hashtags and interact with other users (like I’m doing now), but unfortunately not many people are doing this. We need more users, especially those willing to engage with non-trending content outside the existing echo chamber. I don’t have a good solution for this. But here I am, a human, interacting with your post 14 days after you published it, for no reason other than I decided to check the content of a hashtag I was using myself. Human interaction and content curation are possible on Nostr. It’s just difficult and requires more effort than most people are willing to put into social media. But it’s worth it, and that’s why I think we should keep at it.

I think a good solution is more community relays. The important part of ActivityPub is that it's server > client > server, and clients lives on servers. The content you're going to see on the Fediverse is coming from the local server that you're on + the remote servers that your local server is federating content with. On Nostr (and AT Proto [Bluesky]) it's all just a giant firehose of content coming off the relays, and users, naturally lost, will gravitate towards the trending content since they can't easily find content otherwise. Most users on Nostr are using a set of default relays which indiscriminately slews out random content. It would be better to have small, independent, private relays that users could request to join or otherwise subscribe to which offer quieter, more curated slice of the Nostrspace.

Yeah. Amethyst has just implemented the Outbox model, and I’m doing my best with Haven, and lots of other devs are proving other self-hostable relays of all shapes and sizss, so the alternative to big public relays is already there (not that I expect the vast majority of users to self-host, but there are already hundreds of Haven relays out in the wild). For communities, while it’s still very early days, check out nostr:nprofile1qqs2js6wu9j76qdjs6lvlsnhrmchqhf4xlg9rvu89zyf3nqq6hygt0spzemhxue69uhku6t9dshxummnw3erztnrdakj7qg3waehxw309ahx7um5wgh8w6twv5hsz9thwden5te0wfjkccte9ejxzmt4wvhxjme03d56gx’s Communikeys. I think it will go places. There are also "thematic" relays out there that work fantastically on dev.nosotros.app and jumble.social. A recent one I really like is Spatianostra, curated by nostr:nprofile1qqsvyv8d6dx2tjp33069j2kq2mx7xage6w2upyzvxl4pcegt3t22wyspz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qfqwaehxw309ashqmrpvdjkjmn5dpjhxatw9ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hszyrhwden5te0dehhxarj9ekk7mf00fytsp and nostr:nprofile1qqsymsh9wrz5lmurz0arqn6jjaqyfmtvz2z3qpfxqz5msnvr0wqjd7gpzpmhxue69uhhxmmvda3k7tnwdshsg6f0ul and a small community of less than ~300 people with diluted shares. https://dev.nosotros.app/feed?relay=wss%3A%2F%2Frelays.land%2Fspatianostra Other than that, I’ll be annoying and go back to my original point: intermediate servers or not, Mastodon’s experience is also linear. The difference is 10 million users and a culture of hashtags and boosting. We can do the same here with the tech we already have. Some people already do, and when you view their feed (you can “log in” with their npub for a read-only view), Nostr becomes awesome. We just need to make that awesome experience the default and flood Nostr with it until all the BTC chatter and Nostr "influencers" and predatory / toxic stuff is just a drop in the ocean instead of 90% of what’s "trending" on Nostr.

Exactly!

I'll definitely have to check those out and do more research. I'm strapped for time right now but I earlier elaborated further on what I think is necessary: nostr:nevent1qqsq3uctn8pnnnnjlltvr9cgakufufhxhyyre6exaze9jshz4cj6eyspupmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhj2v3swaehxw309aex2mrp0yhxumm5daeks6fwwa5kute9xgc8wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9ujnyvrhwden5te0wfjkccte9eekjctdwd68ytnrdakj7ffjxpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuvrcvd5xzapwvdhk6te9xgc8wumn8ghj7mnxwfjkccte9eshqup0y5erqamnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7tjwvhxumm5daeks6fwwa5kute9xgc8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwv4u8getj0ghxxmmd9ujnyvrhwden5te0vejkuunfwgkhxtnwda6x7umgdyh8w6twqgsp3yl7yahydmcfllcak3w4czlxmeza9ncj6v6dr2cz6mxcueavdjcrqsqqqqqpuj3zpv