Thread

nostr wins if it stops trying to be a twitter clone and starts being the invisible layer underneath apps you actually want to use. like bitchat for location-based messaging, diVine for entertainment, whitenoise for private messaging, zap.stream for streaming, shakespeare for vibe coding, etc. it wins by unbundling into 50 different apps that all talk to each other, rather than one giant app/corp that traps you. it's all about the ecosystem.

Replies (87)

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It wins with all those other apps but also with the ones that compete with X.com! If in the US, X might be censorship resistant, that is not the case in most of other jurisdictions where Musk just does deals that involve X. So yeah, nostr also needs to be a clone for Twitter.
I agree, but to your credit @jack, you and team tapped into a sweet spot for engagement with Twitter (short messaging, embedded video and images, etc). So, I don’t think it’s an either or….i think it’s matter of everything you said about Nostr being a base protocol for 50+ useful apps AND one or more of those being Twitter-like. @primal and @Damus have the market on this. Excited about future for all Nostr based apps.
Yes agreed which is why we are developing NOSTR fundraising as a value play with incredible upside and zero downside. No cost, no risk, cancel anytime, very simple yet very powerful when NOSTR, Bitcoin and ecash are combined with lightning of course and an easy way to adopt freedom tech without understanding anything🙂 Thank you Jack. The way you have incorporated square is ideal and a huge value prop which could be exclusive to square on a subscription side but open on the benefit side to all.
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↩ replying to Rob Woodgate
It's a massive pivot though. Other stuff was never envisioned as primary. Also what we're looking at now is way beyond even the other stuff part. What we're looking at now is basically an API-substitute. Which is cool. But that's a far cry from a open social media protocol that ensures people can post without worrying about arbitrary moderation policies.
I guess it will get massive adoption when the underlying technology gets invisible. Nobody wants to configure network connections and sync stuff but everyone want collaborative coding/authoring for codes/docs and cloud shared saves of data. When that becomes as easy as google drive/office integration, nostr has won and Bitcoin with it.
Ex-Twitter got so insufferable. It‘s super toxic and I realised it affected me horribly so I finally will try out being on here as I think this is a much nicer app. May I ask respectfully why you sold or why you came back with Nostr/primal? Did you find X so terrible that you just had to come back with social media people could enjoy again? 😃
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Two thoughts on this: 1. We need to get out of the mindset of “building nostr apps”. We simply need to build great products that people want to use, and Nostr will be the underlying protocol. So totally agree with Jack on this. 2. In the long run, we will absolutely displace X and other closed platforms. It will be a grind, but we will wrestle away the network effects from gradually, then suddenly. View quoted note →
A cocktail of half-built apps isn’t going to win us anything. A handful of incredible black holes that millions of people use and hop between with the same nsec will make us win. Instead of 50 apps, maybe it’ll only be 3 or so at first… the infinite slop machine is not the way. Cloning TikTok/Vine feels like a step backwards, a feeble attempt at virality.
↩ replying to npub1t89v...a5h9
I tend to agree, but all the half built slop is part of the process, and can't be stopped. it's also totally possibly that amazing things can come out of this process. most people just won't be aware any of it exists. So it'sreally not an issue. The larger issue is a lack of good products thus far but it's super early days. patience pays
↩ replying to npub1t89v...a5h9
Clients can be big as long as the spec is clear. You can still login to small clients with the same nsec… We should be worried about big relays (data centralization) and not having enough relays e.g. data availability. This phobia to big clients mindless if data portability is still preserved. Airchat is growing to be quite a big codebase, should I just stop developing it? We shouldn’t be parroting these ideas to developers then getting disappointed when all we get is half-baked projects that don’t go anywhere.