Nostr – Decentralized social network(nostr.com)
nostr.com
Nostr – Decentralized social network
https://nostr.com
169 comments
I like alternatives to big sites but this sentence makes me nervous: "Bitcoin & , the native currency of the internet." Is there a need for this?
Its optional, you don’t need to attach a lightning address to your profile and you will receive no bitcoin for your posts.
I am neutral on cryptocurrencies, but I agree that whenever I see people lumping cryptocurrency and cryptographically-secure messaging together it’s a huge red flag.
The UX for key management should be monstrously different between shitposting and the instantaneous loss of money, for starters.
The UX for key management should be monstrously different between shitposting and the instantaneous loss of money, for starters.
Damus does not manage your lightning wallet. All it does is open lightning invoice links in an external wallet when you want to zap someone.
All of this is optional and opt-in.
All of this is optional and opt-in.
I'm with you on every crypto except Bitcoin, but nothing about bitcoin should make you nervous.
Its nice you live in a country with a stable currency that doesnt hyperinflate. Not everyone has this luxury. Zimbabwe and Venezuela come to mind.
Its nice you live in a country with a stable currency that doesnt hyperinflate. Not everyone has this luxury. Zimbabwe and Venezuela come to mind.
Look at all that virtue.
Bitcoin started a literal tsunami of financial crimes, I feel bad for hyperinflated countries and if they find some use in bitcoin that's great for them, but I for one will stay the fuck away from anything blockchain related if I can help it.
Bitcoin started a literal tsunami of financial crimes, I feel bad for hyperinflated countries and if they find some use in bitcoin that's great for them, but I for one will stay the fuck away from anything blockchain related if I can help it.
That's how my grandmother feels about the internet.
Turns out the internet has proven upsides, not sure you can say that about crypto with a straight face.
On a similar note, cellphones/internet allow all sorts of crime. Cars, make it easy to commit crimes. Food, allows people to use energy to fuel themselves to commit crimes. Water/boats/international trade: huge for crime. Cash, great for crime. Government, could be complicit in crime.
ChatGPT says you used "hasty generalization" fallacy, but I'm not sure that is the correct fallacy. You have a fallacy here.
ChatGPT says you used "hasty generalization" fallacy, but I'm not sure that is the correct fallacy. You have a fallacy here.
Nah, that’s not the hasty generalization fallacy. They didn’t say “bitcoin allows for crime to happen”, they said bitcoin has been the center of a huge amount of actual financial crime.
I think that’s the observation fallacy, where you look at what’s happening and then state it out loud.
I think that’s the observation fallacy, where you look at what’s happening and then state it out loud.
> but nothing about bitcoin should make you nervous.
The energy consumption of bitcoin does in fact make me very nervous.
The energy consumption of bitcoin does in fact make me very nervous.
If you don't like Bitcoin, you could always just get an address and if you get tipped, sell immediately. I don't see how this is any different than an app with "gems" you can buy and re-sell back to the app. Some games like Entropia[0] have a fixed exchange rate with the dollar, allowing you to "cash out" of the game, if holding game currency isn't your thing.
It's just game currency essentially for the social app. When I think about it like that, it makes me less nervous.
[0] https://account.entropiauniverse.com/account/deposits/#:~:te....
It's just game currency essentially for the social app. When I think about it like that, it makes me less nervous.
[0] https://account.entropiauniverse.com/account/deposits/#:~:te....
> I don't see how this is any different than an app with "gems" you can buy and re-sell back to the app.
The difference is that the Bitcoin transaction will cause millions of computers to waste a serious amount of electricity calculating hashes over and over.
The difference is that the Bitcoin transaction will cause millions of computers to waste a serious amount of electricity calculating hashes over and over.
It uses the Lightning network, which is a separate network using off-chain transactions. The Lightning network crams upwards of infinite transactions into a single on-chain transaction, called a payment channel.
IIRC lightning network transactions only use as much electricity as 10 emails, although I guess at some point a real Bitcoin transaction will happen eventually.
Yeah pretty much. A lightning channel is a bit like putting money down as a retainer for a lawyer, or putting a deposit down in a hotel.
The real transaction happens at the beginning, and another transaction happens at the end when the channel closes and we settle out who gets the remainder.
The real transaction happens at the beginning, and another transaction happens at the end when the channel closes and we settle out who gets the remainder.
No one is claiming that "gems" are "the native currency of the internet" though.
It’s okay, it’s only technology. It’s been around for almost two decades and it’s open source. Nothing to be afraid of. You can conquer your fear through diligent studying. Good luck!
Why does it make you nervous?
because 99.999% of cryptocurrency projects are scams
How is Bitcoin a scam.
I said "cryptocurrency projects" not "bitcoin." it's things that use bitcoin that are scams.
In the case of nostr is tipping sats using Bitcoin Lighting.
Do you think damus is a scam?
agreed.
full disclosure: I’m a bitcoiner.
full disclosure: I’m a bitcoiner.
100% of it is a scam, the only reason you said 99.99 is because blockchain as a technology is worth something. But crypto coins themselves have no value at all in the real world.
One pizza place here, and one bitcoin ATM there does not make a difference. As long as you can't trade real goods and services for crypto coins it is absolutely worthless. And that is why any association with crypto makes intelligent people scared. Because it's inflated by confidence, like a true scam.
The only real goods and services that have kept bitcoin going is a black market of illegal goods and services.
One pizza place here, and one bitcoin ATM there does not make a difference. As long as you can't trade real goods and services for crypto coins it is absolutely worthless. And that is why any association with crypto makes intelligent people scared. Because it's inflated by confidence, like a true scam.
The only real goods and services that have kept bitcoin going is a black market of illegal goods and services.
Your last point directly contradicts the claim that "100% of it is a scam". People do actually buy and receive those illegal goods and services; you might not like that fact, but it certainly isn't a scam at that point.
And just so that we're clear, said "illegal goods" include, for example, generic drugs from other countries.
And just so that we're clear, said "illegal goods" include, for example, generic drugs from other countries.
in fairness, of the cryptocurrency black market, 99.999% of that is scams too...
I don't think it's recovered from the silk road and alphabay era?
I don't think it's recovered from the silk road and alphabay era?
I don't think Silk Road etc constitute the actual majority of the black and grey markets enabled by cryptocurrency. It's just where most of the media attention is because of stuff like "assassination brokers" etc. Most of it is really mundane stuff, mostly drugs (of either kind). Which is also where long-term repeat customers are valuable, so sellers are hesitant to lose reputation through outright scams.
> As long as you can't trade real goods and services for crypto coins it is absolutely worthless.
As long as you can sell it for USD it's not worthless - you don't other goods/services - although that said the list of those is still growing.
The fact that I can send money (liquid fiat) to a friend without going through paypall/zello/etc. is valuable.
The only thing that could make it a "scam" is the promise of money, which I 100% agree that using crypto to "make money" is stupid and is a massive problem.
As long as you can sell it for USD it's not worthless - you don't other goods/services - although that said the list of those is still growing.
The fact that I can send money (liquid fiat) to a friend without going through paypall/zello/etc. is valuable.
The only thing that could make it a "scam" is the promise of money, which I 100% agree that using crypto to "make money" is stupid and is a massive problem.
> The fact that I can send money (liquid fiat) to a friend without going through paypall/zello/etc. is valuable.
You can do that only because Bitcoin is currently underregulated. Governments will eventually regulate it to enforce money laundering laws and starve DPRK, and then Bitcoin will become even more expensive relative to other options.
You can do that only because Bitcoin is currently underregulated. Governments will eventually regulate it to enforce money laundering laws and starve DPRK, and then Bitcoin will become even more expensive relative to other options.
> You can do that only because Bitcoin is currently underregulated... Governments will eventually regulate it and then Bitcoin will become even more expensive relative to other options.
Sure, and if that happens then it's value as a liquid fiat will decrease. The idea that "it only goes up and to the moon!" is what has made everyone declare it a scam.
If it currently has a use case then it has value. The currency is not a "scam" but this horrendous idea of treating it as an "investment" is delusional.
I think cryptocurrency has a few very valid use cases, but I think it's been shoved onto everything when it's not even needed (CSGO has been fine without NFTs).
Sure, and if that happens then it's value as a liquid fiat will decrease. The idea that "it only goes up and to the moon!" is what has made everyone declare it a scam.
If it currently has a use case then it has value. The currency is not a "scam" but this horrendous idea of treating it as an "investment" is delusional.
I think cryptocurrency has a few very valid use cases, but I think it's been shoved onto everything when it's not even needed (CSGO has been fine without NFTs).
> If it currently has a use case then it has value
The use case is not due to the technology having any benefit but due to current underregulation. The reason people declare it a scam is that the technology does not solve any practical problems better than centralized ledgers.
The use case is not due to the technology having any benefit but due to current underregulation. The reason people declare it a scam is that the technology does not solve any practical problems better than centralized ledgers.
It isn't just that though. Anything crypto coin related attracts scammers, and changes people's posting incentives. Instead of pandering to the userbase for likes and upvotes, it'll now be for crypto coins.
>>But crypto coins themselves have no value at all in the real world.
Then proceeds to handpick what the real world uses of btc should be excluded from the argument.
No coiners are a special bunch.
Then proceeds to handpick what the real world uses of btc should be excluded from the argument.
No coiners are a special bunch.
How does damus relate to nostr? Your landing page does not explain this at all. Is this because already the concepts of (distinguishing) client and network would be considered too technical for your target audience?
I don’t think it’s important to dive into tech details on the damus homepage. Gmail doesn’t attempt to explain the email RFCs when creating an account.
Fun analogy, but I think a better match would be that Thunderbird immediately says that it is an email program.
From my first look I had no idea whether this is an app to connect to Nostr or a completely separate and iOS only network.
From my first look I had no idea whether this is an app to connect to Nostr or a completely separate and iOS only network.
I love Damus and Nostr. Thanks and please keep up the good work.
Nothing about the Nostr protocol struck me as particularly interesting. Spam control, moderation and anonymity are not really dealt with. Why the hype?
All these projects don't understand that it's not the principle of free communication or the idea of sharing content that made networks like twitter and facebook so successful. It was an army of engineers and designers working closely together with marketing people and even psychologists to maximise user engagement and retention. Heck, you could just endlessly recycle the same algorithmic content mixed with camouflaged marketing influencers sans any real stuff and people will suck it up like crazy (looking at you, tiktok). One of the key things nostr criticises (addictiveness) is what will keep it from succeeding on any broader scale.
What makes you think their goal is succeeding on the broader scale, though?
From their website:
>Nostr is a protocol, designed for simplicity, that aims to create a censorship-resistant global social network.
So they basically want to create twitter without Musk (or anyone in charge for that matter). Nothing wrong with that goal, it's just highly unlikely to succeed given the fundamental shortcomings of this approach.
>Nostr is a protocol, designed for simplicity, that aims to create a censorship-resistant global social network.
So they basically want to create twitter without Musk (or anyone in charge for that matter). Nothing wrong with that goal, it's just highly unlikely to succeed given the fundamental shortcomings of this approach.
right. was going to ask the same thing. i'm okay with it being a relative niche. that is to say, writers, economists, artists, etc with a lean towards tech. i'm completely fine with Nostr not becoming the worldwide phenom so that it doesn't attract the spam and the types of people that comes along with popularity.
I think at least some number of people will grow burnt out on addictiveness and want something else. While it may not replace addictive social media there's still potentially substantial value there, which to me seems similar the internet pre Facebook.
To me that seems about as likely as drug addicts suddenly growing tired of shooting up stuff and going into gardening as a hobby instead. Sure, it's not theoretically impossible, but I definitely wouldn't start a gardening platform targeting those people. Pre-facebook basically means a 90s style forum with highly specialised zed communities. You don't need decentralised approaches for that.
> Pre-facebook basically means a 90s style forum with highly specialised zed communities. You don't need decentralised approaches for that.
For a number of years I was a forum moderator for a game forum called Uru Obsession. Eventually that wound down and the forum closed, meaning all those discussions have also been lost (unless someone backed them up - by the time they closed I had moved on, so I dunno), and that community as far as I know has mostly dissolved since its closure.
A gossip protocol means there is no host - clients communicate directly with each other and also store the conversation locally so someone else deciding to stop paying hosting costs becomes a non-issue.
For a number of years I was a forum moderator for a game forum called Uru Obsession. Eventually that wound down and the forum closed, meaning all those discussions have also been lost (unless someone backed them up - by the time they closed I had moved on, so I dunno), and that community as far as I know has mostly dissolved since its closure.
A gossip protocol means there is no host - clients communicate directly with each other and also store the conversation locally so someone else deciding to stop paying hosting costs becomes a non-issue.
> To me that seems about as likely as drug addicts suddenly growing tired of shooting up stuff and going into gardening as a hobby instead.
I've seen a lot of people leave Facebook over the last couple of years. And I mean a lot. Oh, they might still log in every month or two to see what's up with friend and family, but daily use? Nope.
I've seen a lot of people leave Facebook over the last couple of years. And I mean a lot. Oh, they might still log in every month or two to see what's up with friend and family, but daily use? Nope.
Because they all moved to Reddit or Tiktok or Instagram. These are the new drugs in the hood and they kick much harder than boring old Zuck's stuff.
We'll see, I guess. This feels like an attempt to apply lessons of what happened yesterday to today. It feels like assuming success only has one mold. And it resists acknowledging how much people hate the thing we have, how many people consider it toxic and damaging.
I think people just need to be lead to greener pastures. Right now the alpha geeks aren't cooler & better, don't have great & obvious advantages for being out on the frontier trying cool shit. The Tim O'Reilly "Follow The Alpha Geeks" advice is rarely wrong, in my view, for the alpha geeks mostly want to expand capabilities & power & enable, in ways most consumer efforts are too bounded & limited to go for, but we keep forgetting this wisdom's words anyways.
Once the alpha geeks are unqualifiedly better than the mundane normy-nets, the tables will start to turn. I think the geeks are doing the good work, are putting in the right effort.
Dogfood your way to success. Do what empassions & excites you. Don't worry about l-users. Focus on being really good & powerful. You'll be out competed if you do what sigmoid10 says & compete to be the lowest common denominator of social networking, and your product will suck as bad as everything else we have.
Truly good works market themselves. Places where genuine authentic people (and creative fun bots) mix & share themselves in are what we are searching for, is the authenticity that the engagement-loop corporate networks break & burry. There's different races here. I do think the broader we are searching for better more open pattern en mass to replace the walled garden networks (a challenge many distributeers reject), but the path to victory is assymetric competition, is tapping into different sources of value & raising it up in different ways.
Do you believe in humanity? Or do you think synthetic gloss shit forever & ever will always win?
I think people just need to be lead to greener pastures. Right now the alpha geeks aren't cooler & better, don't have great & obvious advantages for being out on the frontier trying cool shit. The Tim O'Reilly "Follow The Alpha Geeks" advice is rarely wrong, in my view, for the alpha geeks mostly want to expand capabilities & power & enable, in ways most consumer efforts are too bounded & limited to go for, but we keep forgetting this wisdom's words anyways.
Once the alpha geeks are unqualifiedly better than the mundane normy-nets, the tables will start to turn. I think the geeks are doing the good work, are putting in the right effort.
Dogfood your way to success. Do what empassions & excites you. Don't worry about l-users. Focus on being really good & powerful. You'll be out competed if you do what sigmoid10 says & compete to be the lowest common denominator of social networking, and your product will suck as bad as everything else we have.
Truly good works market themselves. Places where genuine authentic people (and creative fun bots) mix & share themselves in are what we are searching for, is the authenticity that the engagement-loop corporate networks break & burry. There's different races here. I do think the broader we are searching for better more open pattern en mass to replace the walled garden networks (a challenge many distributeers reject), but the path to victory is assymetric competition, is tapping into different sources of value & raising it up in different ways.
Do you believe in humanity? Or do you think synthetic gloss shit forever & ever will always win?
There's little spam at the moment. There will be. But at that time the relays (pieces of server software that relay nostr messages) can step in and implement spam control via whatever they see fit. Perhaps some smart filtering, perhaps pay a few sats to have a message relayed or perhaps some real name policy. Clients can pick a (set of) relay(s) which fit their preference best. Or not, and accept the default.
The protocol is surprisingly simple to read [1], many relays and clients exist already.
I exchanged messages with a friend of mine who was using a very different client and it just worked!
Personally I like the fact that you can 'like' posts by sending a couple of sats via Lightning. I think it is a great motivator to write thoughtful, quality content.
Currently nostr is radical, weird and unpolished. The Amethyst client is slow at times. But the pace of development is incredible.
[1] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/01.md
The protocol is surprisingly simple to read [1], many relays and clients exist already.
I exchanged messages with a friend of mine who was using a very different client and it just worked!
Personally I like the fact that you can 'like' posts by sending a couple of sats via Lightning. I think it is a great motivator to write thoughtful, quality content.
Currently nostr is radical, weird and unpolished. The Amethyst client is slow at times. But the pace of development is incredible.
[1] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/01.md
Could you expand on how relays differ (mostly conceptually) from something like Mastodon instances?
Adding because Nostr seems to be marketed as something more decentralized than that, and I'd like to get a deeper understanding.
Adding because Nostr seems to be marketed as something more decentralized than that, and I'd like to get a deeper understanding.
This is gossip protocol not a federated thing.
assuming it's the same as Scuttlebutt (also gossip protocol) a relay is literally just a relay. There's no "home server". You don't have an account on anyone's machine. You just shove data out to "people" who are listening to you. In scuttlebutt the relays are configured so that anyone can ask it to "follow" them and then they send their data to it. Anyone who listens to that relay can get any data the relay has.
in scuttlebutt the problem was that I never felt like i could trust a relay to exist for more than 6 months, so i just followed every one i could. No-one wants to set up a relay, and relays have to have a static domain / ip so that you know where to look for them. It's not like tor where you can just leave your computer on and that's good enough. I expect the same problems here.
assuming it's the same as Scuttlebutt (also gossip protocol) a relay is literally just a relay. There's no "home server". You don't have an account on anyone's machine. You just shove data out to "people" who are listening to you. In scuttlebutt the relays are configured so that anyone can ask it to "follow" them and then they send their data to it. Anyone who listens to that relay can get any data the relay has.
in scuttlebutt the problem was that I never felt like i could trust a relay to exist for more than 6 months, so i just followed every one i could. No-one wants to set up a relay, and relays have to have a static domain / ip so that you know where to look for them. It's not like tor where you can just leave your computer on and that's good enough. I expect the same problems here.
Nostr is way simpler than ssb, there isn't even a gossip or replication strategy. You just publish your signed messages on servers. There isn't even a blob strategy!
This makes it way easier for people to write clients or bots or whatever, but it also tosses out many of the guarantees people who used the original scuttlebot took for granted.
This makes it way easier for people to write clients or bots or whatever, but it also tosses out many of the guarantees people who used the original scuttlebot took for granted.
You configure your client post your content to one or more relays. You can use relays that you setup for just yourself, paid relays, and/or free public relays.
When you follow someone, or someone follows you, the follower's client will get a list of relays the person they want to follow is posting to. The follower can connect to any of those relays and get any new content.
On many relays it's possible to get a firehose feed of everything posted to that relay. On free public relays this firehose feed may contain lots of spam accounts.
When you follow someone, or someone follows you, the follower's client will get a list of relays the person they want to follow is posting to. The follower can connect to any of those relays and get any new content.
On many relays it's possible to get a firehose feed of everything posted to that relay. On free public relays this firehose feed may contain lots of spam accounts.
My understanding is the relays don't actually... relay, like mastodon instances do.
With mastodon your client only talks to one "instance" to see all the "instances" that "instance" is federated with.
With Nostr your client connects to every "relay" you want to see content from, there isn't really any communication between "relays".
With mastodon your client only talks to one "instance" to see all the "instances" that "instance" is federated with.
With Nostr your client connects to every "relay" you want to see content from, there isn't really any communication between "relays".
The responses are quite funny "yeah we don't need to have moderation or spam control as opposed to literally any other successful social network". I don't really get excited when that's the default response, because it means they don't get that that's basically the point of a social network.
Coming up with a protocol is not that hard. The technical side is fun to work with, but I guess technologists don't realize that the human side is way harder to do.
Coming up with a protocol is not that hard. The technical side is fun to work with, but I guess technologists don't realize that the human side is way harder to do.
Spam control = relay configuration
Moderation = client side moderation features, most allow muting and blur images from unknown accounts prior to opening. If you don’t like the way a client moderates, move to another
Anonymity = not sure how it’s not anonymous. There’s no sign up, no email, no password. It’s just keypairs being generated. Use a vpn.
How did you use it? The default setting is anonymous unless you reveal who you are.
After I muted a small number of people and used some paid relays I don’t see spam or bad content.
Coolest feature is that you can switch clients while keeping the same relays and all your data stays with you.
Plus a bunch of clients have this auto translate feature so people are talking to each other regardless of the language they speak. I started following some people in other languages - very unique social media experience.
After I muted a small number of people and used some paid relays I don’t see spam or bad content.
Coolest feature is that you can switch clients while keeping the same relays and all your data stays with you.
Plus a bunch of clients have this auto translate feature so people are talking to each other regardless of the language they speak. I started following some people in other languages - very unique social media experience.
You are already paying for paid relays ? What is the reasoning?
Congrats on your first comment by the way.
Congrats on your first comment by the way.
I used paid relays. The reasons are higher quality content. It works alright for spam prevention. Also, I use the nostr.wine filter relay, which is pretty neat. You can connect to it and it will pull notes from your web of contacts (your follows, plus their follows). Additionally, it will rebroadcast your notes to public relays.
It's a pretty nice way to keep your feed quiet (not spammy), but also allow your notes to make it out to the broader public nostr sphere.
It's a pretty nice way to keep your feed quiet (not spammy), but also allow your notes to make it out to the broader public nostr sphere.
I will have to look into this more. It sounds like it's not as simple as the project website makes it sound.
I feel the same way. It seems like it doesn’t even try to solve most of the hardest problems for decentralization. I too find it weird, but it is fun to play with.
It's simple, you can develop a client or relay without too much effort, and has an active dev community. It's also FUN. It keeps me going back on a way that Mastodon never did. Not to mention client interoperability is dead easy. It kinda just works which is really nice.
> anonymity are not really dealt with
Why would you need to deal with anonymity?
Why would you need to deal with anonymity?
Does Nostr have any mechanisms to ensure anonymity, or can the relay log everything?
> Does Nostr have any mechanisms to ensure anonymity
Your identity on the network is a public/private key pair. You don't have to associate your real name with your posts, if you don't want to. And you can have multiple key pair identities if you want.
Posts are plain text by default, but encrypted private messages can also be exchanged.
You can choose what relays to post to, and obfuscate your ip address with a vpn or tor if you desire.
> can the relay log everything
Yes, subject to the above mitigations.
Your identity on the network is a public/private key pair. You don't have to associate your real name with your posts, if you don't want to. And you can have multiple key pair identities if you want.
Posts are plain text by default, but encrypted private messages can also be exchanged.
You can choose what relays to post to, and obfuscate your ip address with a vpn or tor if you desire.
> can the relay log everything
Yes, subject to the above mitigations.
I don't see much spam. It's far, far less than Twitter. I can mute people I don't want to see. And I can be anonymous if I want. What exactly did you mean?
Is it possible you don’t see much spam because it’s currently not big enough to be worth spamming?
As much as I like the idea of anonymous posting, there are some serious issues with spam/astroturfing.
I'm ready to join a social media website that requires a social security number, photo ID, and interview process.
I've had enough of propagandists and marketers.
I'm ready to join a social media website that requires a social security number, photo ID, and interview process.
I've had enough of propagandists and marketers.
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Nostr is decentralized. I think a big part of the idea is that relays just dont carry spam/bad actors. The protocol doesn't, as of yet, have need to handle most of your "it doesn't handle complex social issues X Y or Z" nags because it so far handles these problems socially, not technically, and that's been working for now.
Nostr is all based on anonymous cryptographic identifiers, so it seems like you have some special definition of anonymity that you are looking for, as it seems nothing if not anonymous. Having a stable identifier allows relays to know who to send versus who not to send, and allows connecting data together. Users are free to sock puppet up to their hearts content, if they wish to further diffuse traffic.
The appeal? The appeal here is that this is an incredibly malleable & comprehensible low level tool for messaging. Competitors like AtProto or ActivityPub involve complex protocols to exchange/syndicate data around, as much as the payload of the messages themselves. They are high level visions for what a network is. By compare, Nostr's low level approach is organic & searching not a refined final product, but a thriving ecosystem of expanding ideas.
Nostr has extreme elegance as a protocol by being focused primarily on messages themselves, which start as very simple & understandable self signing devices. The transport & exchange of messages is almost incidental, and indeed, Nostr over shoebox or carrier pigeon is possible. This allows a lot more flexibility with how the network can form distributed connections, allows great offline capabilities, allows creative relays & creative/selective distribution mechanisms to form.
Nostr is an excellent base layer. The base specs are quite short & direct. It's a protocol one can happily implement in a weekend.
Nostr has incredibly wild applications, because it is a simple extensible base. There's a wide variety of interesting capabilities that have already need accepted as Nostr Implementation Possibilities, NIPS, that grow & build on one another. Nostr base protocol is just a start, just the seed of an idea, one that's meant to be iterated on & expanded, and it's so easy & direct to do so. This is the biggest advantage by far; I cannot stress this enough. Not trying to do absolutely everything & making a modular simple protocol to start building & iterating from is all the wins, is the Bazaar to the ambitious Cathedrals. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips
Nostr is by far the most malleable, most open set of possibilities, the most grow able, of the social networks we have. Everything else seems to have been designed to arrive somewhat fully formed, ready to go, but Nostr's strength is that it doesn't purport to know every use case & to have a total picture of what it is. It's a much simpler idea, with much more focus on finding out the uses.
Nostr is all based on anonymous cryptographic identifiers, so it seems like you have some special definition of anonymity that you are looking for, as it seems nothing if not anonymous. Having a stable identifier allows relays to know who to send versus who not to send, and allows connecting data together. Users are free to sock puppet up to their hearts content, if they wish to further diffuse traffic.
The appeal? The appeal here is that this is an incredibly malleable & comprehensible low level tool for messaging. Competitors like AtProto or ActivityPub involve complex protocols to exchange/syndicate data around, as much as the payload of the messages themselves. They are high level visions for what a network is. By compare, Nostr's low level approach is organic & searching not a refined final product, but a thriving ecosystem of expanding ideas.
Nostr has extreme elegance as a protocol by being focused primarily on messages themselves, which start as very simple & understandable self signing devices. The transport & exchange of messages is almost incidental, and indeed, Nostr over shoebox or carrier pigeon is possible. This allows a lot more flexibility with how the network can form distributed connections, allows great offline capabilities, allows creative relays & creative/selective distribution mechanisms to form.
Nostr is an excellent base layer. The base specs are quite short & direct. It's a protocol one can happily implement in a weekend.
Nostr has incredibly wild applications, because it is a simple extensible base. There's a wide variety of interesting capabilities that have already need accepted as Nostr Implementation Possibilities, NIPS, that grow & build on one another. Nostr base protocol is just a start, just the seed of an idea, one that's meant to be iterated on & expanded, and it's so easy & direct to do so. This is the biggest advantage by far; I cannot stress this enough. Not trying to do absolutely everything & making a modular simple protocol to start building & iterating from is all the wins, is the Bazaar to the ambitious Cathedrals. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips
Nostr is by far the most malleable, most open set of possibilities, the most grow able, of the social networks we have. Everything else seems to have been designed to arrive somewhat fully formed, ready to go, but Nostr's strength is that it doesn't purport to know every use case & to have a total picture of what it is. It's a much simpler idea, with much more focus on finding out the uses.
> I think a big part of the idea is that relays just dont carry spam/bad actors.
How would the relay evaluate what is spam and what is not?
How would the relay evaluate what is spam and what is not?
Yeah, I just don't understand what would relay operator actually do if someone would generate 10k key pairs and post 100k gpt-generated replies to some random posts.
There's actually a NIPS (Nostr's equivalent of RFCs) which introduces a proof-of-work scheme to prevent spamming.
Event IDs are a SHA-256 over the event's payload and metadata, so the idea is that you put some extra metadata saying "I'm doing a bunch of extra work to generate an ID with N leading zeros in the ID", and then a nonce value. You generate the ID, and check to see if it has the number of leading zeroes you wanted. If it doesn't, you increment the nonce and try again. If it does, you're all good- you sign the event and send it along.
Because the ID must be a SHA256 of the rest of the event, you have a fairly good indication of how much work the client would have had to do to generate that nonce. The more zeroes in the ID, the more effort they would have had to expend.
So, as a relay operator, you can define a policy that you won't relay events that don't meet this proof-of-work requirement, and boom, no more spamming.
Of course, there are other ways to handle the spam problem, such as requiring authentication mechanisms or external attestation of messages. But there are multiple tools in the toolbox here.
Event IDs are a SHA-256 over the event's payload and metadata, so the idea is that you put some extra metadata saying "I'm doing a bunch of extra work to generate an ID with N leading zeros in the ID", and then a nonce value. You generate the ID, and check to see if it has the number of leading zeroes you wanted. If it doesn't, you increment the nonce and try again. If it does, you're all good- you sign the event and send it along.
Because the ID must be a SHA256 of the rest of the event, you have a fairly good indication of how much work the client would have had to do to generate that nonce. The more zeroes in the ID, the more effort they would have had to expend.
So, as a relay operator, you can define a policy that you won't relay events that don't meet this proof-of-work requirement, and boom, no more spamming.
Of course, there are other ways to handle the spam problem, such as requiring authentication mechanisms or external attestation of messages. But there are multiple tools in the toolbox here.
Can you explain why nostr is (apparently?) your favorite over scuttlebutt? Are the protocols similar?
https://scuttlebutt.nz/
https://scuttlebutt.nz/
I guess because it's the only one on the market? At least afaik
> Why the hype?
Jack Dorsey is a co-founder, that's it. I feel like "nostr.com" has been showing up on the HN front page, with no context, at least once every week.
Jack Dorsey is a co-founder, that's it. I feel like "nostr.com" has been showing up on the HN front page, with no context, at least once every week.
Jack Dorsey funded some of the early development through a grant. Nostr has no co-founders or CEO. It's a protocol, not a company.
Jack is not a cofounder. Nostr.com is owned by a random user (not sure who, but can probably figure it out). Nostr was created on 2020 by an anon developer named fiatjaf. Jack made grants to nostr devs in 2022 (among other FOSS projects) after he first discovered it. He has no part in the development of the protocol other than the grants, although he is an active user.
Someone's got professionals pumping it, for sure. Along with the recent context-free appearances on the front page, note that this is the 2nd post from submitter @throwaway689236.
When I see a platform that advertises as 'censorship-resistant' as it's top line I just figure it for libertarian bullshit.
Nostr user here, absolutely love everything I am seeing. I think Nostr is deeply misunderstood by onlookers and I'd like to share a few things that may help clear things up:
1. Nostr is not a social network - it's a protocol on top of many social networks can be built. 2. Nostr is not limited to the social use cases - and I think that is the killer advantage here. With Nostr, you can integrate various other types of apps to facilitate not only chat but content distribution AND payments. One click payments with zaps. 3. Zaps are going to open up a floodgate of use cases that have a significant advantage over legacy ways of doing things. For example: if you have a music app with multiple recording artists, any time someone zaps or streams their song, all artists involved could get paid instantly. 4. Nostr is a discovery powerhouse that enables content to be easily discovered across platforms without gatekeeping. For creators this is great news because they can just publish in one place and be in all (willingly) participating clients/apps. This alone is a huge development that I don't think too many are grasping just yet.
Yes, it is still clunky at times, but the UX and UI is getting better over time. The development model makes it easy for anyone to jump in and build. You are not limited to any particular way of doing things and can create a custom experience for your audience while having access to the entirety of the protocol.
Some resources for people:
- https://www.heynostr.com/ - https://www.nostrapps.com/
1. Nostr is not a social network - it's a protocol on top of many social networks can be built. 2. Nostr is not limited to the social use cases - and I think that is the killer advantage here. With Nostr, you can integrate various other types of apps to facilitate not only chat but content distribution AND payments. One click payments with zaps. 3. Zaps are going to open up a floodgate of use cases that have a significant advantage over legacy ways of doing things. For example: if you have a music app with multiple recording artists, any time someone zaps or streams their song, all artists involved could get paid instantly. 4. Nostr is a discovery powerhouse that enables content to be easily discovered across platforms without gatekeeping. For creators this is great news because they can just publish in one place and be in all (willingly) participating clients/apps. This alone is a huge development that I don't think too many are grasping just yet.
Yes, it is still clunky at times, but the UX and UI is getting better over time. The development model makes it easy for anyone to jump in and build. You are not limited to any particular way of doing things and can create a custom experience for your audience while having access to the entirety of the protocol.
Some resources for people:
- https://www.heynostr.com/ - https://www.nostrapps.com/
> Nostr is a discovery powerhouse that enables content to be easily discovered across platforms without gatekeeping. For creators this is great news because they can just publish in one place and be in all (willingly) participating clients/apps.
Beyond the marketing barf, what makes this a "discovery powerhouse"?
From the description, it doesn't sound any different from Mastodon, or having an email newsletter, or publishing your own website.
Beyond the marketing barf, what makes this a "discovery powerhouse"?
From the description, it doesn't sound any different from Mastodon, or having an email newsletter, or publishing your own website.
Network effects. Every new app that joins grows the network without the content creator having to do anything new.
If I joined today for example, how would I come across something you posted? The user increment is +1, but that's just the potential number of people you could reach. Somebody would have to the equivalent of re-tweeting, for your content to be visible on their profile, and discoverable by others.
Is that different from say, Mastodon?
Is that different from say, Mastodon?
There are a few ways to find my content.
1. Follow me
2. Find my note in a hashtag / interest-based relay or in global chat (global will probably not remain for long as the network grows and it gets too noisy / spammy). You'll have interest based relays / tags, however that gets structured. Right now there are no interest-based relays that I know of (yet).
3. Via a boost (equiv. to retweet).
4. Via some sort of ranker. Some clients rank posts by activity.
In general, you have to follow people to discover content you want to see, but it's not a requirement (as outlined above). I definitely think the Nostr experience for people improves dramatically as they follow a few folks.
In general, you have to follow people to discover content you want to see, but it's not a requirement (as outlined above). I definitely think the Nostr experience for people improves dramatically as they follow a few folks.
like mastodon? from my mastodon account I can interact with pixelfed (like Instagram), peertube (like YouTube) and Lemmy (like reddit).
Sorry I am not familiar with Mastadon.
"1. Nostr is not a social network."
Someone should really change the marketing CTA.
"A decentralized social network with a chance of working"
I can see why people would think this.
Someone should really change the marketing CTA.
"A decentralized social network with a chance of working"
I can see why people would think this.
That's the beautiful part about Nostr, anyone can create a website and "sell" it any way they like.
That's a huge benefit over social media projects like Mastodon, which lack discovery features entirely.
On the last HN thread about Nostr I've mentioned Bluesky, and talked about its qualities, including the separation of various duties, like the feed, moderation, storage, etc. into different entities that can be pluggable.
Since that I got an invite (thank you, Sam!) and I'm even more bullish now (though I'm not much of a social media poster myself).
Compared to Nostr it seems like there's a first-party "base" app that most people can use, which has UX very similar to Twitter, with the assumption that people will be able to make their pick of app/moderation/feed/... later based on merit, not lock-in.
It seems like in the recent days/weeks a lot of non-technical various public figures have onboarded Bluesky, thanks to this ease of getting started. Folks that I wouldn't expect there for a while yet.
To any Nostr users - how's that developing there? Based on my cursory look onboarding looks quite a bit more daunting.
Anyway, the Twitter blue checkmark seems to be a blessing for decentralized social networks.
EDIT: Since I already got an email about it 5 mins after writing this - No, I don't have any invite codes, sorry.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35692378
Since that I got an invite (thank you, Sam!) and I'm even more bullish now (though I'm not much of a social media poster myself).
Compared to Nostr it seems like there's a first-party "base" app that most people can use, which has UX very similar to Twitter, with the assumption that people will be able to make their pick of app/moderation/feed/... later based on merit, not lock-in.
It seems like in the recent days/weeks a lot of non-technical various public figures have onboarded Bluesky, thanks to this ease of getting started. Folks that I wouldn't expect there for a while yet.
To any Nostr users - how's that developing there? Based on my cursory look onboarding looks quite a bit more daunting.
Anyway, the Twitter blue checkmark seems to be a blessing for decentralized social networks.
EDIT: Since I already got an email about it 5 mins after writing this - No, I don't have any invite codes, sorry.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35692378
Download amethyst on Android or Damus on IOS. You're onboarded. Set up a lightning wallet to receive tips for valuable content. No wait list for this decentralized protocol. No native app, no dev team, no terms of service.
Thanks, I might check it out then!
> No wait list for this decentralized protocol.
This should soon be the case with Bluesky as well, iirc, since federation seems to be the main thing they're ironing out right now (alongside moderation).
> No wait list for this decentralized protocol.
This should soon be the case with Bluesky as well, iirc, since federation seems to be the main thing they're ironing out right now (alongside moderation).
The AT protocol is interesting to me, but I actually don't like Twitter's UX. The organization has always seemed off to me -- when Bluesky starts taking more people from the wait-list, I suppose I'll see if it's any better, but I'm glad it's only a 'reference' or initial front-end, and more will come.
Bluesky doesn't even have federation and/or decentralisation yet, so they aren't really comparable.
Seems like bluesky will be where people move from twitter. I was kind of hoping mastodon would be it and my mastodon feed is actually pretty good. But everyone seems to be moving to bluesky as soon as they get an invite.
I'm curious what part is daunting to you? I have no issues getting set up on Damus. It was as easy as any other app.
What do you think of Bluesky TOS?
I had the chance to speak to some Nostr devs this weekend. My impression (like other mentions below) is that it seems less like a social network than it does a messaging protocol.
As with all tech protocols, there's potential for more sophisticated things to be built on top of them, but I didn't get a clear sense that Nostr people are interested or serious about product engineering to make this a "Twitter killer" or some other popular buzzword.
There was an interesting discussion on how to limit spam in distributed networks, the primordial problem of any social web endeavor. The two poles seem to be relying on "financial incentives" vs "identity gatekeeping". For those that believe in the power of the free market to regulate tricky social problems, I think Nostr has a lot of promise.
As with all tech protocols, there's potential for more sophisticated things to be built on top of them, but I didn't get a clear sense that Nostr people are interested or serious about product engineering to make this a "Twitter killer" or some other popular buzzword.
There was an interesting discussion on how to limit spam in distributed networks, the primordial problem of any social web endeavor. The two poles seem to be relying on "financial incentives" vs "identity gatekeeping". For those that believe in the power of the free market to regulate tricky social problems, I think Nostr has a lot of promise.
If you're on Android, use Amethyst.
If you're on iOS, use Damus.
If you're on the web, https://snort.social and https://iris.to
🫂
🫂
Also on web, https://satellite.earth if you prefer reading conversations as threaded comments
Calling Nostr a social network to me seems like a category error. It's a messaging protocol. People might build a social network on top of it, but it's not necessarily going to have any of the properties Nostr has, the same way Facebook is built on top of html.
If you want to solve social issues at a protocol level, there need to be social mechanisms in the protocol. That would honestly be kind of interesting to see. But Nostr is just a reinvented networking stack.
If you want to solve social issues at a protocol level, there need to be social mechanisms in the protocol. That would honestly be kind of interesting to see. But Nostr is just a reinvented networking stack.
Seems like it's more than that considering they have mobile apps coming that are definitely social networks.
I can build a social networking mobile app on top of HTTP but does that make HTTP a social network?
Nostr doesn't need to become the new Twitter and I think it fills a fun niche but I think bluesky will eventually be that new Twitter because your average Joe just wants to go to twitter.com/whatever and not have to mess around with other people's domains, private keys, and whatever. Again, I think Nostr is great and eventually I imagine you can just push to both platforms but the people I follow on Twitter are not technical by any means and Bluesky is probably where they will land.
Yes, this is right.
Nostr will be more like Mastodon was before Elon ... a smallish place for enthusiasts of decentralization, albeit following a different protocol than Mastodon, of course.
Bluesky is already the new Twitter, you can tell. The cool kids all want to be on Bluesky. In effect, the very low rate drip of invites approach they are following, coupled with a virtual megaton of almost entirely gushing, breathless positive stories from the tech press are generating a high pent-up demand and a sense of virality even while it has a tiny userbase. The people running it are very clever, and are clearly doing everything they can to become the alternative for disgruntled Twitter users that Mastodon, Nostr and others are not (and arguably never were trying to be ... Bluesky is, by contrast, trying like heck to be exactly that).
Does this mean Twitter dies? No, I don't think so. What I think it means, though, is that, like the MSM, we will have likely two microblogging platforms that are broken into socio-ideological camps, like we have with most of the other media. It's new for social media, of course (not that there haven't been wing platforms before, but they have been small), but not new for media in general or the internet in general. And one could say that it's actually somewhat surprising that it took so long for this kind of split to happen in social media as well, but it kind of "feels right" that it's happening, given the very divergent ways that people have reacted to Twitter over the past year. It seems "right" that there should be separate services for people based on the kind of ideology and views they prefer, since this is how pretty much everyone rolls in every other aspect of the media already anyway.
Nostr will be more like Mastodon was before Elon ... a smallish place for enthusiasts of decentralization, albeit following a different protocol than Mastodon, of course.
Bluesky is already the new Twitter, you can tell. The cool kids all want to be on Bluesky. In effect, the very low rate drip of invites approach they are following, coupled with a virtual megaton of almost entirely gushing, breathless positive stories from the tech press are generating a high pent-up demand and a sense of virality even while it has a tiny userbase. The people running it are very clever, and are clearly doing everything they can to become the alternative for disgruntled Twitter users that Mastodon, Nostr and others are not (and arguably never were trying to be ... Bluesky is, by contrast, trying like heck to be exactly that).
Does this mean Twitter dies? No, I don't think so. What I think it means, though, is that, like the MSM, we will have likely two microblogging platforms that are broken into socio-ideological camps, like we have with most of the other media. It's new for social media, of course (not that there haven't been wing platforms before, but they have been small), but not new for media in general or the internet in general. And one could say that it's actually somewhat surprising that it took so long for this kind of split to happen in social media as well, but it kind of "feels right" that it's happening, given the very divergent ways that people have reacted to Twitter over the past year. It seems "right" that there should be separate services for people based on the kind of ideology and views they prefer, since this is how pretty much everyone rolls in every other aspect of the media already anyway.
The political groups are simply rough mappings to "major demographics" of users and their preferences - clout-seekers, self-styled entrepreneurs, collectivists. The actual shifts taking place are all within the old bundling/unbundling saw: some features are now outside of the product, and some are integrated into it, and the features attract or repulse these demographics accordingly.
Mastodon always presented some dealbreakers for the "clout-seeking" demographic, since ActivityPub doesn't flatten the space into one high school class ranking(basic KPIs for this goal like numbers of likes don't synchronize across instances), and instances that behave badly are treated by the broader network as "nails to be hammered down", for better or for worse. And nostr likewise centers visible exchange-of-value which is too grubby and nakedly commercial for the upper crust. So I agree that Bluesky is "it" in the realm of attracting Twitter users, for the moment.
But any of these three could absorb features of the others in time. That tends to happen in tech.
Mastodon always presented some dealbreakers for the "clout-seeking" demographic, since ActivityPub doesn't flatten the space into one high school class ranking(basic KPIs for this goal like numbers of likes don't synchronize across instances), and instances that behave badly are treated by the broader network as "nails to be hammered down", for better or for worse. And nostr likewise centers visible exchange-of-value which is too grubby and nakedly commercial for the upper crust. So I agree that Bluesky is "it" in the realm of attracting Twitter users, for the moment.
But any of these three could absorb features of the others in time. That tends to happen in tech.
Good points.
It will be interesting to see how things shake out, certainly, and where we are in the microblogging space in, say, 6 months.
It will be interesting to see how things shake out, certainly, and where we are in the microblogging space in, say, 6 months.
I see two flaws with that.
The first one is that there's no such thing as left and right. Two left wingers can have completely different opinions on nuclear and covid. So what political topic do you split the services based on? People seem to unite based on who they are against, but does that really work in the long run?
The second is that with newspapers, you're fluid and jump around. With your social circle, you build it to keep it. I'm following people from 13 years ago on Twitter. It works because social circles don't focus on politics. I can discuss fitness with my PT, programming with a university professor, and racing with a driver. Losing out on half of the population because you disagree on topic X seems crazy to me.
The first one is that there's no such thing as left and right. Two left wingers can have completely different opinions on nuclear and covid. So what political topic do you split the services based on? People seem to unite based on who they are against, but does that really work in the long run?
The second is that with newspapers, you're fluid and jump around. With your social circle, you build it to keep it. I'm following people from 13 years ago on Twitter. It works because social circles don't focus on politics. I can discuss fitness with my PT, programming with a university professor, and racing with a driver. Losing out on half of the population because you disagree on topic X seems crazy to me.
Yes, but I think there are different sets of users.
Users like you probably are going to want to be where the largest and most diverse group of people is, which will be the largest service. That is currently, by far and away, Twitter. Moving those people away from Twitter, if they do not already have a strong motivation (either socio-political, or use policy, or because their friends and follows have all moved somewhere else), is unlikely, but in any case most of the users who are like you are going to be with the largest service. I doubt that we will have two equally sized services, at least not for quite some time, because many people who are not very disaffected with Twitter will not move.
The most disaffected groups are the ones who have the highest incentive to move to a new platform, and currently many of these fall into the "disgruntled" category, often for socio-political reasons. It makes sense to think that these will be over-represented in the group that makes a serious effort to move to the new platform (if you look at who comprised the surge of users of Mastodon, or something like Post, you can see that this is definitely the case). Bluesky will, at least initially, be like this, I think. In the long run, though, you're right -- most people will want to be with the larger, diverse platform.
Users like you probably are going to want to be where the largest and most diverse group of people is, which will be the largest service. That is currently, by far and away, Twitter. Moving those people away from Twitter, if they do not already have a strong motivation (either socio-political, or use policy, or because their friends and follows have all moved somewhere else), is unlikely, but in any case most of the users who are like you are going to be with the largest service. I doubt that we will have two equally sized services, at least not for quite some time, because many people who are not very disaffected with Twitter will not move.
The most disaffected groups are the ones who have the highest incentive to move to a new platform, and currently many of these fall into the "disgruntled" category, often for socio-political reasons. It makes sense to think that these will be over-represented in the group that makes a serious effort to move to the new platform (if you look at who comprised the surge of users of Mastodon, or something like Post, you can see that this is definitely the case). Bluesky will, at least initially, be like this, I think. In the long run, though, you're right -- most people will want to be with the larger, diverse platform.
In the same way your average person doesn't care about privacy, they don't care about Elon Musk's shenanigans. Twitter is not failing in the way his detractors continue to hope.
Bluesky will never gain any more traction than Rumble, Truth, Gab, or Mastadon. It will fade into obscurity before even launching just like Clubhouse. Because offering the same exact service, with seemingly no visible changes, does not matter to most people.
Bluesky will never gain any more traction than Rumble, Truth, Gab, or Mastadon. It will fade into obscurity before even launching just like Clubhouse. Because offering the same exact service, with seemingly no visible changes, does not matter to most people.
There's been a steady attrition of celebrities and other major players from the platform. social media platforms don't die overnight, they die over time.
> In the same way your average person doesn't care about privacy, they don't care about Elon Musk's shenanigans.
They obviously do care about Elon's shenanigans. Celebrities are leaving Twitter, politicians are leaving Twitter, companies are leaving Twitter, news organizations are leaving Twitter. These are the people Twitter should be concerned about because they have the followers and people will go where they go and they are currently going to bluesky.
They obviously do care about Elon's shenanigans. Celebrities are leaving Twitter, politicians are leaving Twitter, companies are leaving Twitter, news organizations are leaving Twitter. These are the people Twitter should be concerned about because they have the followers and people will go where they go and they are currently going to bluesky.
Today, we have a lot more bandwidth at home. I always wondered if having a "social network" device at home would make sense in the future.
I imagine a device like a router or an Apple TV, that you connect at home. Then, you own it, everything you post is on your little device. Maybe you pay a few bucks a months so you can upload an encrypted backup in the cloud somewhere.
There's obviously downsides to it, but I think I would buy such a device.
I imagine a device like a router or an Apple TV, that you connect at home. Then, you own it, everything you post is on your little device. Maybe you pay a few bucks a months so you can upload an encrypted backup in the cloud somewhere.
There's obviously downsides to it, but I think I would buy such a device.
Sounds like a good app for an old phone!
Does Nostr use ActivityPub or is it a proprietary implementation?
Nope – it is its own thing. https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr
stop linking to github!
The latter.
For what it's worth, Nos is a pretty great iOS app for this: https://www.nostrapps.com/apps/nos-social
This has zero chance of working if normies have to fiddle with keypairs.
There's no reason they have to "fiddle" with it. Generating a new keypair could be a button.
Normies use keypairs every time they connect to an https site. They just don't know it, nor is there any reason why they should.
Normies use keypairs every time they connect to an https site. They just don't know it, nor is there any reason why they should.
This is not a function of "could." They're already asking users to do it. If they "could," why didn't they? To make something easy, you first have to actually make it easy. Not let forum users argue about how easy it "could" be.
> If they "could," why didn't they?
Because this is early days?
Surely you don't imagine that every product emerges in its final form?
Maybe instead you could explain why they couldn't. As I noted, people seem to be able to use TLS to make secure connections to websites without generating keypairs from the command line, or whatever.
Edit: and in fact this has been done.
https://nostr.how/en/guides/iris
Type in your name. Hit "Go". Done.
Because this is early days?
Surely you don't imagine that every product emerges in its final form?
Maybe instead you could explain why they couldn't. As I noted, people seem to be able to use TLS to make secure connections to websites without generating keypairs from the command line, or whatever.
Edit: and in fact this has been done.
https://nostr.how/en/guides/iris
Type in your name. Hit "Go". Done.
Saw a post about Nostr on here a week or so ago and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I don't think it's likely to become the next platform (and the crypto stuff probably doesn't help), but I just find enjoyment with the minimal spec and how simple it all is.
I don't understand how moderation or handling the large transfers of duplicate data between relays and clients will work.
I don't understand how moderation or handling the large transfers of duplicate data between relays and clients will work.
Wrote a post om how to access Nostr using the iris.to web client in case it helps: https://www.wedesoft.de/software/2023/04/25/nostr/
So, I am surprised the Fediverse is not mentioned. Already bigger and better than anything Nostr is trying to do. Why reinvent the wheel? Or why not join the wheel?
and there's a fediverse nostr bridge allowing users from both networks to communicate (insofar as they don't hide from eachother) https://mostr.pub/
distributed > federated
I don't think this is always true. Centralized services have practical benefits, and federation is a compromise between fully decentralized and centralized.
Federation frees individual users from key management (a trivial issue for HN users, but a big pain for less technical users).
Instance admins can handle spam and abuse for entire communities, and what is acceptable varies between communities.
Data can be aggregated per instance instead of independently fetched per user. For example, previews for external links can be cached per instance, since you trust your instance. In a fully distributed system it'd be either vulnerable to manipulation (since HTTPS doesn't offer a way for others to cryptographically verify data originates from a URL, without contacting the origin server) or every user would have to fetch a link preview themselves, which has DDoS potential and tracking risks.
Federation frees individual users from key management (a trivial issue for HN users, but a big pain for less technical users).
Instance admins can handle spam and abuse for entire communities, and what is acceptable varies between communities.
Data can be aggregated per instance instead of independently fetched per user. For example, previews for external links can be cached per instance, since you trust your instance. In a fully distributed system it'd be either vulnerable to manipulation (since HTTPS doesn't offer a way for others to cryptographically verify data originates from a URL, without contacting the origin server) or every user would have to fetch a link preview themselves, which has DDoS potential and tracking risks.
If someone’s looking for a fun project to do on a weekend.
Going through and implementing the nips for nostr is really fun. You can make a mvp version of a client in a afternoon.
Going through and implementing the nips for nostr is really fun. You can make a mvp version of a client in a afternoon.
K3s + kilo and key exchange via video works well enough for me.
No need to dig into a black box protocol concept and implementation hiding in the corner of the ‘net
No need to dig into a black box protocol concept and implementation hiding in the corner of the ‘net
Everything I've heard makes it sound like it's for people who don't think Mastodon's onboarding is confusing enough.
This 'Nostr' thing will never take off, it has too much 'cryptocurrency' laden features that nobody asked for.
yuck.
yuck.
A culture of tipping for content you find valuable at the click of a button that works for people to cash out regardless of their jurisdiction is yucky to you? I guess, i see it as one of it's biggest selling points, however you can turn it off in some clients
You're twisting words. Tipping is not the problem here, it's the cryptocurrencies. If you can't see how people mistrust them then you're probably deeply invested in them yourself.
As long as there is no real value in the real world it will remain inflated by confidence, which reeks of scam. And no one pizza place here or a bitcoin atm there does not make a difference. So far the only real goods and services crypto has traded at scale are on an illegal black market.
As long as there is no real value in the real world it will remain inflated by confidence, which reeks of scam. And no one pizza place here or a bitcoin atm there does not make a difference. So far the only real goods and services crypto has traded at scale are on an illegal black market.
Cryptocurrency is optional.
Everything "crypto" has become a bit toxic during the past year.
Are you into crypto?
What you're describing was tried with "steemit.com" and it ended as you would expect; lots and lots of spam.
How do people cash out of a token that isn't a currency?
I'm not interested in being blasted with prophetic bitcoin nonsense 24/7 on every thread or on any conversation I have with people.
I opened a random web client and saw too many 'cryptidots' on this nostr thing.
No way this will grow.
I'm not interested in being blasted with prophetic bitcoin nonsense 24/7 on every thread or on any conversation I have with people.
I opened a random web client and saw too many 'cryptidots' on this nostr thing.
No way this will grow.
Honestly the content being almost exclusively about Bitcoin and Nostr might be it's biggest problem.
There are ways to get non-bitcoin or non-nostr content - like following hashtags (in Amethyst and other clients), for example #grownostr #F1 #beerchain, etc. Generally whatever interest you have, follow the hashtag.
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Virtually all nodes are github-only, and all nodes require github software to run
Lots of misconceptions here. If you're interested in learning more I'd highly recommend reading up a bit, https://nostr.how (disclaimer, I'm the maintainer of that site).
Shouldn't explanatory information be on nostr.com? What credibility does this 3rd party site have?
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[1] https://damus.io