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Nostr sometimes feels like that awkward party where everyone’s standing in corners checking their phones instead of talking. We’ve built this incredible censorship-resistant protocol, escaped the algorithm plantation, and then… crickets. Here’s the psychological trap: we assume someone ELSE will engage, so we lurk instead of participate. Classic bystander effect meets network effects. Meanwhile, we’re all secretly refreshing our notifications hoping for that sweet dopamine hit of human connection. The brutal truth? Nostr’s value isn’t in the protocol, it’s in US using it. Every like, zap, and repost creates positive reinforcement loops that keep people posting quality content instead of doomscrolling back to the bird app. We’re literally Pavlov’s dogs, but we can choose to ring each other’s bells. Engagement breeds more engagement, and network effects are how we build the future. P.S. - If you didn’t engage with this post, you just proved my point. 😏

Replies (52)

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I think I actually engage more with people on Nostr than I did on Twitter. But here it's positive engagement, on Twitter it was mostly destruktive engagement. I saw stupid people and had to tell them how stupid they were, the algorithm saw that I engaged so it showed me more stupid people. On Nostr you can just ignore the idiots.
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i engage by building. had a few POC tasks completed on the demo client of
Catallax - A Protocol for Pseudonymous Contract Work Economies
Catallax is an open protocol that enables pseudonymous contract work economies. It runs over Nostr, Bitcoin and Cashu ecash for censorship-resistan...
 but i'm hoping people actually use it for real stuff. might have to wait until we have more robust subjective reputation systems... 😐
Exactly. Social media is only as valuable as the content flowing through it. If it’s saturated with original thought (smart people making smart points) the “dopamine hit” isn’t just a notification, it’s the acquisition of valuable information. The poster gets rewarded with zaps, likes, and reposts; the reader gets rewarded with insight; and the bystander gets rewarded by having something worth engaging with. Critical mass happens when credible voices (whether MSM-promoted or established elsewhere) decide to only show up here. That exclusivity draws in their peers, and eventually the “normies” orbit around them. It’s the Trump-on-Twitter effect, but without a central choke point. Nostr has already crossed a credibility threshold: Jack Dorsey, Ken Berry, Lyn Alden, and others continue posting here not out of novelty but because the community is intelligent, principled, and aligned on Bitcoin. That foundation ensures higher-than-average discourse and resilience. From there, growth becomes inevitable. Bitchat is a preview; Nostr will outgrow the Bitcoin circle simply on the merits of being uncensorable, open, and frictionless to adopt.
The lack of actual human connection is the problem. Any social media (nostr included) is just an attempt to fill that void. Fill your life with meaningful relationships and you won't care about any other type of engagement. Get married, have kids and everything else becomes noise. image
I lurk because so often there is such negative commentary directed towards “normies” and literally the words “if you don’t get it I’m not helping you”. So as someone transitioning from normie, I feel intimidated by some of the conversations and condescending tone. Having said that, when I have asked for help, it has been given freely. For me, it just a lot of courage to say anything for the fear of judgement. And that’s all on me, for sure, I’m just sayin’
How we interact with social media, how we communicate got trained over the years and is deeply embedded in our systems. Yes, many people are trained to hunt for dopamine on social media. And NOSTR proves that this doesn't necessarly work anymore. People don't post for likes (dopamine), here on nostr: People post for zaps (yes still dopamine). And everybody knows the saying: "You wouldn't zap a car crash." That's why people think more before posting, which is a blessing, but also post less because of that (can also be a blessing to be honest ---> signal > noise
Maybe the awkward silence is part of the magic. Unlike other platforms, here we’re not being manipulated into constant noise. On Nostr, engagement means more, because it’s real and chosen. Quality over quantity, signal over noise.
I am new fairly new to Nostr, it takes a little getting used to, I have been liking posts that interest me and if I think they are really cool or I feel I have some kind of a connection (for example someone post about their garden or chickens ) I have been zapping them, I think that’s how its supposed to work, not sure if I can receive zaps yet myself but I’m still trying to figure things out 😊