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Building a FOSS chat app isnโ€™t easy โ€” it takes a ton of time, effort, and resources. Simplex probably went down that token route just to cover costs. Keychat, on the other hand, is trying something interesting โ€” using ecash sats as postage stamps for messages. And then thereโ€™s 0xchat & XChat โ€” we donโ€™t have any monetization model, but weโ€™ve been lucky to get steady grant support from @OpenSats , which helps us keep building and moving forward. View quoted note โ†’
โ†ฉ replying to AU9913
None of them are solved with another token... ๐Ÿ˜‚ Like, you could just make your own secure server. Why blockchain? Oh "decentralized" The only thing in crypto that is really decentralized is Bitcoin. Everything else is unnecessary. And Bitcoin is terrible to use for arbitrary data. It's slow AF. And you need external software to even index it in the first place and it's terribly expensive. So they go oh well we can make a blockchain that is better in all those areas. Then you lose the decentralization. So there's no point to a blockchain. You're literally just adding a while host of complexity that has as much security as your own internal centralized server anyways. Any thought at all from a first principal perspective would exemplify this. So the choices are 9/10 they're just going to rug their coins slowly to zero and make money doing it and go away. Or 1/10 they're just dumb and didn't think about this logically 10/10 chances it will end the company and the protocol within a decade.
โ†ฉ replying to Keychat
I didn't even think about the revenue model. I had, perhaps erroneously, presumed their decision was based on simplicity of build that would save time and capital. If you're charging per message, or a portion of each zap I make, great, all the power to you. I only paid attention to the fact Nostr PWA's/sites just work better in Keychat. And most importantly, Keychat has the most functional nsec signer out. I feel safer exploring vibe coded apps and not worrying about whether they're slop that'll lose my keys.
How serious are we all about protocols?๐Ÿค”๐Ÿงโ” I think we all need to look into, and support, the development of Reticulum, which,--if I'm understanding it correctly--would replace the base layer, the TCP-IP layer, of the global internet, with a real, private, anonymous, encrypted base layer that INTENTIONALLY is the internet that we all know that we want...
And it's not even that difficult to build good bitcoin support into a chat app. I'm a relative noob to privacy tech and - thanks to good existing libraries and AI assistance - I was able to make a chat app with a cashu wallet built-in, using the MDK (Marmot Development Kit) for MLS chat. I don't expect to continue on my project, it was just a fun project to get to know the libraries, and to learn how things like push notifications work and to learn more about MLS. I hadn't heard of Keychat, I'll check it out now!
Iโ€™ve recently become interested in Nostr relays that can accept ecash on a per note basis so that relays can get paid while users can send notes from randomly generated keysโ€ฆ are you guys running a relay that accepts ecash? Have you written anything about that? I looked at the github docs but didnโ€™t see anything mentioned there about the Nostr relay used
โ†ฉ replying to npub1mgvw...pdjc
I mean the relay collects digital stamps into its own wallet. When the Keychat wallet has a balance, Keychat will request 32 ecash tokens of 1 sat each from the Cashu mint. These are what we call digital stamps. A digital stamp is simply a piece of data, since ecash tokens are bearer tokens. When a user sends a message, the digital stamp is automatically appended to message. When the relay receives the message, it redeems the digital stamp. At the moment, weโ€™re the only ones advocating for and using digital stamps.
This is very disappointing to see. Looks like the opposite of growth. And for the record I donโ€™t want SimpleX relays. I thought the point was for people to ultimately run their own. Theyโ€™re trying to scale? For what? โ€œSomebody has to pay for itโ€. This is not a social media app. I thought it was for personal and group secure messaging that doesnโ€™t fall apart when AWS or their farms get hit by a DoS. I didnโ€™t want to use your servers in the first place, but understand the need for PoC. Maybe itโ€™s on me for misinterpreting. I guess I was hoping this was about decentralization for as much as that word appears in this recent sales pitch. It appears to be about creating a sustainable business model for them to host. Was definitely one of my favorite designs. ๐Ÿ˜” Please help me understand if Iโ€™m missing something here. Possible I misinterpreted the project from the start.