Thread

Why Nostr is struggling… There is too much of an overlap with X, not only in the feature sets among the primary applications, but more importantly, in the kind of audience that Nostr is catering to. Sure..censorship resistance at the protocol level is a differentiator, but the to the average person, you may as well be talking gibberish. They don’t know wtf a protocol is in the first place - let alone why it matters for censorship resistance to happen at that level, or more importantly, WHY they should trust Nostr to deliver on that promise. “Bcoz @jack said so” is not an argument. ———— Bluesky is a case in point here. It’s got a VERY similar feature set to X, claims to be open source / censorship resistant (similar narrative to Nostr), and is growing MUCH faster than Nostr, bc it has captured a key audience, ie; people with TDS and EDS (Elon Derangement Syndrome). https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bluesky-signups-surge-uk-amid-musks-row-with-government-over-riots-2024-08-13/? I’ve been on there a few times, and the content quality is enough to make you want to throw up….but at the very least, it’s working for that kind of content, and for the people who want it. I don’t have a direct answer here..but I think it’s something to do with the over-emphasis on technicals. @DETERMINISTIC OPTIMISM 🌞 mentioned increasing the emphasis on design the other day. I agree this is a move in the right direction. We’re taking a very design-focused approach with @Satlantis: The Social Events App (we’ll have ALOT more to show in the next 6wks). That being said, it’s not enough. IMO, Nostr is technically mature enough for us to go out there and talk about it to more people, and build a narrative BEYOND the 500 of us that are talking to each other on here. People like @PABLOF7z or @Gigi can correct me if I am wrong here. Maybe there’s alot more to do technically. But if I am right, I’d like to see more initiatives that are marketing oriented being supported by @HRF and @OpenSats and other coalitions. Maybe we even need a council of Nostr businesses, who together pool some funds to help drive some marketing initiatives? Whatever the case, we need to expand upon the Nostr narrative, make it more compelling and speak to more people about it. At the very least, we have to conquer then Bitcoiners. If we can’t get the segment who are into freedom money onto the freedom of speech network, we’re DOA. That’s a first step. I know @Tanja is working on a very cool initiative in relation to this. The Nostr Booth is IMO a great way to make Nostr more “real” for bitcoiners by having a physical presence at all the conferences. I know @utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻 + @fiatjaf are doing some Podcast outreach. That’s super important too. @mcshane and crew are putting on Nostriga. Amazing. @miljan / @primal are doing great things with @paul keating, etc on the content side. I’ve got some things up my sleeve personally which I will begin to do once @Satlantis: The Social Events App is in a position to represent a NEW kind of Nostr-product.. But we need MOAR.. And…we also need to find another angle that is NOT about censorship resistance. That’s clearly not working against X. I don’t know the EXACT narrative or spin, but it has to be more “running towards” than “running from”. More white pill, less black pill. Anyway. I will probably turn this into an article. I’ve been thinking more and more about “writing in public” as we build Satlantis, and sharing more about how we’re thinking about growing a “network product” on top of a “network protocol”. If you think this was valuable, please repoast so more people can see and get involved in the discussion.

Replies (94)

Nostr is struggling because they chose social to test the protocol .. everyone hates social or not ! .... but no one wants more of it ! Besides the network effects are impossible to break .. That said , if it survived social experiment, then sky is the limit .. both technically as well as to market standpoints ..
When there is enough variety in topics on Nostr, a varied audience can connect. Nostr has been over-branded and branding is a central planning mechanism. When I started with Reddit or Twitter, I never used their branding as some kind of flag or banner. I think a positive step forward is to reduce the bashing of other media channels. One of Nostr's problem is trying to be different from Twitter while not understanding what makes Twitter valuable to its users.
↩ replying to npub163t5...37ry
Development is great. See my comment 10min ago to Lyn. Clarifies further. And the biggest area of struggle IMO is where nostr lives in people’s minds (outside of the regular crowd on here). It’s struggling to find a place. BlueSky, as shit as it is, found a place, and it’s very clear: “The Anti-X”. And it’s growing 10-20x the rate that nostr is, as a result
↩ replying to Svetski
The people that still pay attention to msm aren't the ones going to come to nostr. I really don't care if all the bluesky people want to wall themselves off there in their echo chamber because they are the type that aren't swayed by truth, facts and logic anyway. They are the emotional, theoretical types. The value of nostr is here, it's real and that's all it needs to be. Like bitcoin up until about this year. Those who can see actual value will arrive. Those who can't are better left behind.
I like the optimism here, and my advice is to drop references to pill, pilling etc. It's a bizarre insider reference imo and one whose roots are a bit condescending to the people we aim to win over. Just my two ⚡️⚡️ 🤩 the Network Product angle is interesting. How do we find things here? For me, the discoverability layer is a key part of Nostr to build. Happy to consult on this (I'm an information architect)
Maybe we shouldn't use terms like "censorship resistant" and instead say "you can post whatever you want and no one can stop you." Because that's the reality of it, yes? This might be a little misleading but maybe we could also say that you can "make money" off of nostr since a lot of clients have lightning built in. You could also say "hey you can make an infinite amount of accounts on nostr with no workarounds needed." That would also spark people's interest but also turn some away. As far as I know, couldn't we also say that you can post a note that contains volumes of text? I've also seen some nostr streams on noStrudel. I feel like I'm being a little too obvious and shallow here; I haven't really deeply thought about this and this is just my first reaction thoughts.
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It's not struggling. It's a time preference thing. The same argument has been talked about Bitcoin. "It's old tech" "It's too slow" "There's faster versions that do better things" For me Nostr is doing a job and doing it well. This is the problem with transitioning from a consumerist economy to a sound money economy. The mindset is "now, now, now" and that doesn't build quality - it builds quantity. Which will eventually offer nothing productive, and break society.
↩ replying to Sean
No. You just didn’t read what I said. The point of my post is that outside of the tiny bubble on here, nobody knows where to place nostr in their minds. That is a communication problem, NOT a tech problem. And blue sky, with inferior tech, is doing a 10x better job with comms, by catering to the weirdo’s (that shitshow is growing at 20x the pace) Furthermore, you clearly don’t understand network effects. Unlike bitcoin, Nostr doesn’t have direct economic incentives built in, so I the network is more fragile and susceptible to becoming a tiny echo chamber. Nothing in my post suggested “we need it all now” - but that there needs to be more thinking done on comms. Right now 90% or more of the focus is on tech - and IMO, we’ve got good enough tech to begin putting resources and effort toward comms & marketing. Does that help clarify?
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↩ replying to Svetski
Here's how a post usually goes on social media with a centralised algorithm. - Have great 'hook', something controversial like 'why something doesn't work'. - offer a better alternative, normally something the person posting has invested interest in for their own gain or to position themselves as an expert to build trust to leverage later on. - Tag all the other people on that platform who have built up trust already and are actual experts - to reaffirm the posters 'expertise', leveraging their trust. - At the end of the post ask everybody to 'like,share, and comment' to manipulate the algorithm 👀 for their own gain. -When confronted by the idea they've posted about... become ultra defensive and use words like 'No, you're wrong' without considering the pros and cons of the response.
Great points. I always thought that the deplatforming of popular people was not only an idealogical selling point but also a giant arbitrage opportunity. The biggest component would then be having someone with the charisma and energy to onboard that popular content creator and their audience as quickly as possible while the iron is hot. Not sure who would be a good candidate. Could be a tall order but I think slick UX for normies + talent on the persuasion/onboarding side could go a long way when those opportunities present.
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Nostr doesn't compete so much with Twitter, FB or other social networks, but more with single-sign-on providers such as Google or Microsoft. Using multiple apps with one verified signin. And have a good payment option at the same time. Only without KYC and annoying middlemen. That's the slogan. Twitter is also trying to go in the direction of an “everything app” because it can't grow with only posting notes; Nostr is competing with this. And it has the potential to replace all the big tech with it. The social media application stands out at the moment, of course, but it's not for everyone. The ecosystem and the other apps need to be pushed more. There are people who have nothing to do with social media but sell things on eBay all day long. Shopstr is a promising candidate. Or # asknostr for Quora-like platforms. And there are more use cases where identity and payment are central. You know, I got my first high with a Zap, but my second, no less, high with a small freelance gig via Shopstr. I've never done a job so stress-free, fast and straightforward. More of this please!
I really like this conversation. Somethings I would like to help make general onboarding easier. Focus on making account creation and security of keys easier and more convenient. I have some thoughts on this. As it is hard for me to onboard a person securely in short and consistent way. Also some tools for content modification would be useful. Such as image processing. Twitter has it built in. Free apps are full of crap. And then I think it can become easier to start promoting the eco system to a wider audience through different avenues. Such as a social app. A services app. A media app. Where your profile is yours and follows you. So in summary. Maybe the benefits need to be up sold more. Not the features. Benefit of your account and data being yours. And an ability to manage it better than a google account. Just thoughts. Thanks.
I find it also odd that everyone embraces a guy that had the most censored platform at times when it needed to be open and he collaborated with the govt on many levels and his excuses are dumb Nostr embraces him only for the money which is ironic
↩ replying to npub1uplx...sfek
What’s Your Take? 🤔 Do you think we should create separate clients for different formats or keep everything in one place? 📖 If you want to read articles, visit Nosit. 🎥 If you want to enjoy videos, head over to Nostube. 📸 If you want to scroll through images, check out Nostagram. Or... should we mix all formats in a single platform for a more unified experience? 🌀
I think with Elon's takeover of twitter and the continuing alienation of people, Nostr is at the right place at the right time but I agree that it would be great if it could capitalize on this opportunity more rapidly. The "gradually then suddenly" mantra is not wrong but maybe it is too idealistic. Apart from the no-brainer to capture as much of the bitcoin crowd as possible and - for lack of a better term - better marketing, two aspects could also be considered: a) similar to bitcoin's value proposition, not looking at it from a western perspective but thinking about the long term appeal of Nostr to people living under authoritarian regimes. It should be immediately obvious to anyone living under such a regime how Nostr differentiates from Twitter & co in many regards (e.g. doxxing risk from the central authority, shutting down their account because the government said so etc.). Make Nostr better known to those people and maybe we see a rapid rise in participation. I realize many good people like @gladstein are working that angle already but could we do more in that direction? b) that might be controversial but I strongly believe if one could convince a major celebrity to switch to Nostr exclusively from twitter, you will have a big portion of their following joining along. Imagine if Taylor Swift tomorrow declares that she quits twitter and will continue on Nostr! Nostr would immediately gain millions of users. Question is, if/how to convince a celebrity with a strong following to become exclusive? Apart from idealistic arguments, maybe purely financial motivation is needed? I realize this is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way but what if instead of @jack supporting Nostr development work with the next round of money, Swift gets paid $5M to become Nostr exclusive for 3 months? This might have a bigger impact on Nostr' popularity and uptake than anything else. Not the morally best way to do it and the numbers might be off but I'm more playing devils advocate a bit here for brainstorming reasons.
Great thread @Svetski. Some very valid points here. At the end of the day the Nostriches are Unimportant! We mean nothing to the world. We are only a small group that understand what @fiatjaf and the other great minds of this protocol will mean to the future of humanity. And why. Incentive is the key. What is it that drives people to use something? Two of the main forms of "payment" is monetary and recognistion = ego. People like to be heard and recognised. X, Facebook Instagram etc they are all about recognition and some do make some money from it. The social media aspect of #nostr has the oppertunity two democratise this far further than the big existing platforms where one needs to be verified blah blah etc. Anyone can send sats to anyone for what they write. Very much a differenciator. Also #nostr socials are #bitcoin money driven. We should have some interesting times ahead. Let's use this as an opportunity to get people interested in #bitcoin. "Hey you know at #bitcoin thing that is going up. There is a social media platform called #nostr @primal where you can potentially get some #bitcoin really easy". And then of course last but not least they cannot turn it off or hide information from us like youtube. Facebook etc has been doing and stealing our information. At the same time. All this said. I think we need realise that the social media part of #nostr is just scratching the surface of what change it can and will bring to society. We believe at @npub1dmnz...3kv6 that we are at the forefront of an internet revolution. The adoption of #nostr based real world adoption is about showing the benefits to society by using the protocol. Simple to implement. Cheap to implement. Data accuracy is 100% and verified. This in turn will give the user more confidance in using it. Also the idea that user is being given control over their own identy and data can be sold as a sence of empowerment. I would say that the world is now very open to that sense of empowerment. Just like bitcoin was launched after the global financial crisis. All the medical and manipulation has readied humanity to be open to these type of ideas of self control and something society would love to embrace. Not everyone straight away but slowly. Look what has been achieved in 15 year with @bitcoin. Our own approach to rolling out the #nostr based #saludprotocol with a real world implementation in partnership with a real world institution. We believe this is key towards proper adoption and simple on-boarding. Understanding the market segment we are working with. As the users are using this technology over time people can learn what they have. How they now are in control and have control over #freewill like @jack talkes about. The big message at the end of the day comes down to the fact that we need to focus on what drives humans to do things. Not on what drives just a small group humanity. Again we #Nostriches are non Important. Let's build 🌐#nostr
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Businesses that can attract capital need to see a path to making money on nostr. I know that advertising is disliked here, but it's because the current internet ad model is tightly coupled with surveillance. Nostr has the chance to redefine how ads are delivered. I believe zapping people gets their attention better than anything. If zap ad conversion rates can be favorably compared to normal ads, then there is incentive for capital to build larger zap-ready audiences.
Bitcoin Circular Economies that use the Lightning Network is the biggest draw, and the problem is that the communities that need those structures the most are usually in the locations where Internet bandwidth is lacking or the most expensive per KB. I mean, it still works to transfer value via phone from person to person, but building a large enough network to start to build a monetary foundation for an entire community is a long haul project, not something to be taken lightly or just mentioned in passing. Nostr being a single global platform where everyone is equal hasn't been seen since the early days of myspace. We need to relearn what a social network is, how it is built, and how it connects to the larger world IRL and economy.
↩ replying to npub1murd...cnel
We need to relearn human psychology, specifically what brings people together and what inspires them to open Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok. The majority don’t care about earning or monetizing their content or comments—95% of the audience is just there for fun (except on LinkedIn). Only businesses and creators care about fast lightning and Zaps reactions on posts; the majority still care about fun, value, and entertainment. Let's go back to standard and purpose of networking sites. Connect with unexplored places and people without worrying about your country's permissions or content blocking. Connect with world on Nostr without taking permissions.
↩ replying to npub1zxp8...hh37
Nostr and the LN combines open global connections with the ability to conduct commerce locally for all goods and services. Reaching out across the world is an option and a choice, but paying for the food you eat, for the expenses of housing, education and health care, for all the things we enjoy, that's the real power that we have given over to gate keepers and middle men for centuries. That's the power we need to take back, using a medium of exchange and unit of account that doesn't fail as a store of value over time.
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I think the strongest incentive for nostr comes from the "own your audience" or better put "own your connections". This comes from owning your online identity. Nostr will be the only place where you will be able to build a reputation that lasts FOREVER. Comms need to be directed towards people with something to offer: Serious content creators, businesses, freelancers, open-source project leaders etc. They have skin in the game as they will ALWAYS lose their hard-earned reputation until they realize, on nostr your connections i.e. your reputation cannot be rugged. Don't waste your time on silly normies with nothing to gain, nothing to lose. So the message becomes: "If you start to build your audience on nostr apps you will make compounded gains without the fear of rugpull - Otherwise you will be left behind by people who made that choice earlier. Sure it takes courage. Sure it takes work to onboard your audience and explain how things work here differently but this is such a small cost compared to the guarantees nostr provides: Your everlasting online identity that cannot be canceled, corrupted or owned by anyone but you." Time is on the side of builders on nostr.
↩ replying to Five
This approach is for the few creators who really think about legacy and long-term purpose. Most creators are shortsighted, only looking for quick fame and monetary benefits within a few months or 1-2 years. If they don't see traction within a few months, they stop creating and start chasing another platform, like TikTokers becoming YouTubers or YouTubers becoming TikTokers. TikTok provided fast Fame Youtube provided a good amount For 4% of creators, this approach can work. Need to think about the other 96% of creators.
Agree and disagree. So how does an echo chamber work. Is the first attempt. Which is really how think your thinking. The point of a positive echo chamber is new ideas grow and hopefully flourish. The Meztdow and CPunks among others, was the opportunity to collaborate in a deformed discussion. Best ideas got to the top with critical thinkers. And that brainstormed. The point of open honest conversation is to agree on the smartest ideas. That’s it.
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I think the best narrative is interconnection of different apps. You get app with reviews of restaurants from your friends. Highlights of content. Posts and images. You can meet your friends at events. All these apps use the same identity and social graph. It's like if Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Medium, Yelp, Meetup, ... used the same backbone.
↩ replying to Juraj
I think this is a strong angle. That being said, I do see some challenges in having my identity shared across multiple different platforms. For example. People communicate with their audiences quite differently on Instagram, compared with X, compared with Substack, and certainly when compared with LinkedIn. I’ve had a number of conversations with content creators who’ve mentioned this. It’s not a deal breaker for them, but it’s something I don’t have a very clear answer for. But overall - I think the portable identity and portable social graph is the biggest benefit, and the one worth leaning into with messaging & comms.
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↩ replying to Svetski
Yes. One possible angle is that they won't do it like that. If you post a photo, someone might look at it in a photo viewing app like Instagram, some might see it as a blog or a microblog. People looking at Nostr on Twitter often search for social media management app that can repost content from Twitter to Nostr. I always suggest not to do that, Nostr is different and has its own language and interactions are different. And it's best to get a feel for it first. For creators, there are two ways of looking at it. First is that there is not much engagement here, you can't target, you can't convince the algorithm to show your posts. The old tricks don't work. On the other hand, for some niches, Nostr still is the least crowded channel (idea I got from Tim Ferris's work). Your competition is probably not here yet. It feels like town square, there is a nicer vibe to it. But maybe it just isn't for creators, maybe it's for a few of us and it'll stay like it and it's ok.
Agree that censorship resistance is not enough of a feature for the average person to be interested in Nostr. But I disagree that if we can’t capture the freedom money group then we’re SOL. Nostr has more opportunities than freedom perks (although they are important), and I’m personally excited for Nostr to be able to recommend content that’s much more interesting than what’s on YouTube/Tiktok etc.. Escaping the data silos of big tech means that user information and posts across the network can be used and manipulated in new ways. User choice of a specific algorithm is HUGE and I don’t think this should be overlooked. We’re talking about fine tuning parameters so that each time you open the home page of an app, you’re actually interested in most of the content presented to you. Can’t tell you how many times YouTube recommends the same videos over and over, or more clickbait esque videos about how the world is burning and all hope is lost. Customizing your own algorithm means having the ability to filter out a lot of this.
I'm just a user, not a dev, so it's easy for me to say this and feel free to ignore my uninformed position, but... Let it struggle. Good stuff takes time and grows more resilient through the struggle. Seems like Nostr has had great legs already. I don't think we should seek mass adoption because privacy and censorship are not valued in society overall right now - it would be futile - and tricking normies into using it will help in the long run. It won't have mass adoption until those values return, and they won't for a long time or until a critical mass changed their minds. Until Nostr I hadn't used any type of social media for over a decade, and I just felt that Nostr was worthy of my efforts to participate. We have to keep going as the minority.. the 20% to make 80% of the change
Svetski's avatar Svetski
Why Nostr is struggling… There is too much of an overlap with X, not only in the feature sets among the primary applications, but more importantly, in the kind of audience that Nostr is catering to. Sure..censorship resistance at the protocol level is a differentiator, but the to the average person, you may as well be talking gibberish. They don’t know wtf a protocol is in the first place - let alone why it matters for censorship resistance to happen at that level, or more importantly, WHY they should trust Nostr to deliver on that promise. “Bcoz @jack said so” is not an argument. ———— Bluesky is a case in point here. It’s got a VERY similar feature set to X, claims to be open source / censorship resistant (similar narrative to Nostr), and is growing MUCH faster than Nostr, bc it has captured a key audience, ie; people with TDS and EDS (Elon Derangement Syndrome). https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bluesky-signups-surge-uk-amid-musks-row-with-government-over-riots-2024-08-13/? I’ve been on there a few times, and the content quality is enough to make you want to throw up….but at the very least, it’s working for that kind of content, and for the people who want it. I don’t have a direct answer here..but I think it’s something to do with the over-emphasis on technicals. @DETERMINISTIC OPTIMISM 🌞 mentioned increasing the emphasis on design the other day. I agree this is a move in the right direction. We’re taking a very design-focused approach with @Satlantis: The Social Events App (we’ll have ALOT more to show in the next 6wks). That being said, it’s not enough. IMO, Nostr is technically mature enough for us to go out there and talk about it to more people, and build a narrative BEYOND the 500 of us that are talking to each other on here. People like @PABLOF7z or @Gigi can correct me if I am wrong here. Maybe there’s alot more to do technically. But if I am right, I’d like to see more initiatives that are marketing oriented being supported by @HRF and @OpenSats and other coalitions. Maybe we even need a council of Nostr businesses, who together pool some funds to help drive some marketing initiatives? Whatever the case, we need to expand upon the Nostr narrative, make it more compelling and speak to more people about it. At the very least, we have to conquer then Bitcoiners. If we can’t get the segment who are into freedom money onto the freedom of speech network, we’re DOA. That’s a first step. I know @Tanja is working on a very cool initiative in relation to this. The Nostr Booth is IMO a great way to make Nostr more “real” for bitcoiners by having a physical presence at all the conferences. I know @utxo the webmaster 🧑‍💻 + @fiatjaf are doing some Podcast outreach. That’s super important too. @mcshane and crew are putting on Nostriga. Amazing. @miljan / @primal are doing great things with @paul keating, etc on the content side. I’ve got some things up my sleeve personally which I will begin to do once @Satlantis: The Social Events App is in a position to represent a NEW kind of Nostr-product.. But we need MOAR.. And…we also need to find another angle that is NOT about censorship resistance. That’s clearly not working against X. I don’t know the EXACT narrative or spin, but it has to be more “running towards” than “running from”. More white pill, less black pill. Anyway. I will probably turn this into an article. I’ve been thinking more and more about “writing in public” as we build Satlantis, and sharing more about how we’re thinking about growing a “network product” on top of a “network protocol”. If you think this was valuable, please repoast so more people can see and get involved in the discussion.
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↩ replying to npub1c99a...wnw3
Perhaps. But those are still niche niche niche niche niche products. I say niche 5 times and that’s still probably too generous. Yes - things need to start somewhere, and maybe time is all that’s needed. But I’d like to put some effort into the right places (communication and marketing) so that the time we have is more effectively utilised
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Speak for yourself, I've been doing my thing and I've never used X. I'm streaming str8 goodness in the mornings, get more Indie Web folks by not banging on about money and "owning the libs". I don't know how many folks here have hobbies outside money? That's a good start. Each one teach one. No context Phil Collins ftw.
the issue is people are never aware of censorship because they are fundamentally repeaters and if any idea is banned they can never notice it because before they can be punished for repeating it they must first hear it somewhere but they never do since it is banned ... thus people on every platform believe they have freedom of speech because everyone who realizes there is no freedom of speech on that platform - is banned from that platform ... all of you loser slaves here are transplants from other slave platforms and honestly have no use for freedom since you can't say anything that would be banned elsewhere anyway ... only way for NOSTR to be meaningful is to recruit people with the most extreme ideas not accepted anywhere else - for example Pedophilia, Incest and a total ban on religion - including both Christianity and Judaism. so far only myself, @npub1alyk...qzxg and @A. Linder express ANY ideas that would get us banned from other platforms. the rest of you don't know why you're here. @Mike Dilger ☑️
↩ replying to npub1nshq...cgnl
Christianity is very flawed when taken seriously, since it leads to viewing niggers as equal humans. That said, I did recently clip Jay Dyer saying Eastern Orthodox allows 15 yo women to get married. So, it's not completely worthless. Just very flawed. I always vouch that White Patriarchy is the only way forward, so I do wonder if an atheistic version of it would be sufficient to replace Christianity.
Well said. With the Telegram ceo arrest, censorship is top of mind for many Bitcoiners. Seems worth it to pitch them on nostr as many aren’t here and some are using Twitter. Broadly, the pitch need to be tailored to specific groups of people. What is the imoortant problem nostr *uniquely* solves for: Current users? Many Bitcoiners not on here. The next (bigger) group of users? Who might hey be and why? Are they eBay people? What *unmet* need does nostr meet for any group of folks?