Thinking about my last note, I had this thought as well. The gap between engagement quality and follower count reveals something interesting about how attention works on Nostr. When we consistently find ourselves drawn to smaller accounts for substantive dialogue, we’re seeing the gap between visibility and actual value. Just because someone got here early or built a large network doesn’t mean they’re offering the most interesting perspectives. Without an algorithm, smaller accounts face a pure discovery problem. They’re not being suppressed, but they’re not being surfaced either. The best conversations often happen below the visibility threshold, with people who take time to think through their responses and genuinely engage rather than broadcast. These accounts offer the kind of interaction that makes social protocols worth participating in, but they rely entirely on people like you actively seeking them out and responding. What makes your observation valuable is that it points to something many of us probably feel but don’t articulate. The most rewarding exchanges aren’t happening where the follower counts suggest they should be. They’re happening in replies from accounts with 240 followers who actually read what you wrote and had something thoughtful to add. So this is both an encouragement and a thank you to those Nostriches; your contributions matter more than your reach suggests. The people finding you and engaging with your ideas are getting far more value than the metrics reflect. And to everyone making the effort to engage back, as you do, you’re solving the discovery problem one genuine interaction at a time. 🫡 That’s how good networks get built.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Just finished the monthly follower purge. Been noticing something for a while now and curious if long time Nostriches see the same pattern. Nostr seems less like a platform people abandon and more like a builder’s workshop people graduate from. The accounts that go quiet aren’t usually disillusioned. They’re fragmented. Someone builds something real here, it gains traction, then suddenly they need presence across multiple platforms because their project demands broader reach. The Nostr account doesn’t die, it just becomes one of five they’re juggling. What I keep seeing is ideas and tools that eventually make it into broader society tend to incubate here first. Small, high signal, no algorithmic manipulation. The prototype phase happens in this space. Then when it needs scale, builders scatter outward to find their full audience. They’re still here, just diluted across platforms. The community stays tight and niche not because we’re insular, but because we’re perpetually in early stage mode. When projects mature past that point, they have to go multi platform. That’s not abandonment, that’s just how building in public actually works at scale. Maybe what looks like exodus is actually Nostr functioning as designed. Not the destination, but the launchpad. The primordial soup where things start. For those who’ve been here since the early waves, do you see this pattern too? Or am I rationalizing attrition? Genuinely curious what others observe. #asknostr

Everyone wants to be Gangster until a real Ganster shows up! #GangStr

If y’all haven’t said or wished our boy @Derek Ross a Happy Birthday, you better get to it! Happy bday brother. Nostr wouldn’t be the same without you! View quoted note →

GM Nostr. My morning unfolds in phases. Spiritual time (prayer), physical preparation(workout), mental calibration(reading), then connection with the Nostriches. A protocol that attracts builders and thinkers tends to cultivate the best conversations.

Only a Fed would call out another Fed. Typical behavior. 😉 View quoted note →

Started mapping out Nostr users and their connections. Realized everyone here is either… A fed. A fed pretending not to be a fed. A fed pretending to be a fed pretending not to be a fed. Actually just a fed #FedStr

Your children will be formed by someone. If it’s not primarily you, then by default it’s everyone else. That’s not a delegation you can afford to make unconsciously.

One of the most underappreciated aspects of Nostr is the quality of disagreement that occurs here. Setting aside technical debates like knot versus Core (which themselves demonstrate how substantive discussion can happen), what strikes me most is the absence of personal destruction as a rhetorical strategy. On legacy platforms, disagreement has become synonymous with character assassination. The algorithm rewards outrage, the architecture encourages pile ons, and the incentive structure makes demolishing your opponent more valuable than understanding their position. Every debate becomes a referendum on someone’s worth as a human being rather than an examination of ideas. Nostr offers something different, not because its users are inherently more virtuous, but because the protocol itself removes many of the perverse incentives that corrupt discourse elsewhere. There are no engagement metrics to maximize, no algorithmic amplification of controversy, no central authority to appeal to for the suppression of dissent. You can mute, you can block, but you cannot mobilize a platform against someone. This creates space for intellectual honesty. People can be wrong without being evil. Arguments can be heated without being personal. The goal becomes persuasion or mutual understanding rather than social annihilation. The test of any communication medium is not whether everyone agrees, but whether disagreement can occur without degrading into tribal warfare. By that measure, Nostr is passing a test that centralized social media has catastrophically failed. This alone makes it worth being here