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Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

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Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#11

Post by meibo »

Anything Jack is involved in is tainted for me until further notice. I wouldn't even dare to touch any of his new platforms, seeing his connections with Elon and how his judgement failed so spectacularly with the Twitter deal - it's not worth it, just to be sold out again when he gets bored of it or it doesn't end up being a business. At least he admitted to it.

I'm not saying Mastodon is the solution, but at least no one can take it away from me at a whim or has full control over the protocol and the app.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#12

Post by neilk »

> Resilience is provided by the protocol being simple enough to implement in a weekend, in your language of choice. Platform lock-in is impossible, since any client can republish any note to a different relay if one misbehaves or enacts a disagreeable policy.

That's a wonderful sentiment but we said the same thing about the web and email and both are effectively controlled by large companies.

Twitter is centralized due to being the creation of a single company, but that's not the fundamental problem.

The web and email got effectively centralized because distributed protocols create problems of search, filtering, abuse, identity, community continuity, etc. You can't easily solve them in a distributed way, and even if you _can_, you can't easily get everyone in the network to upgrade. Hence, providers arise that say "We're Nostr, only better!(tm)" or "We're the best way to find what you want on Nostr!" and they work on locking in their customers.

If you want to be resilient to monopolization you have to show how you're going to solve those other problems.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#13

Post by leesalminen »

meibo wrote: post #11

Anything Jack is involved in is tainted for me until further notice. I wouldn't even dare to touch any of his new platforms, seeing his connections with Elon and how his judgement failed so spectacularly with the Twitter deal - it's not worth it, just to be sold out again when he gets bored of it or it doesn't end up being a business. At least he admitted to it. I'm not saying Mastodon is the solution, but at least n…

> how his judgement failed so spectacularly with the Twitter deal

A CEO doesn’t approve an acquisition in a publicly traded company. The Board of Directors decide.

> or has full control over the protocol and the app.

Jack does not have any control over the nostr protocol.

He may arguably have some control over one of the iOS client apps (due to him finding the dev), but that’s about it.

I was an organizer of nostrica (nostr’s first conference) last month. Yes, Jack paid for the venue, food & merch but he didn’t ask for anything in return.

He was very humble about the whole thing. More than I thought he would be.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#14

Post by throw101010 »

eykanal wrote: post #3

Saying "I don't want censorship" is equivalent to saying "I'm fine with people using my tool for coffee meetups, genocide planning, bridge club, and drug deals." It's an attempted handwashing of moral responsibility under the cover of software purity. At this point, it's pretty well documented that social media _as a tool_ has increased young female mental illness; the question is only "how much" [1]. To try to wave…

> "I'm fine with people using my tool for coffee meetups, genocide planning, bridge club, and drug deals." It's an attempted handwashing of moral responsibility under the cover of software purity.

None of these activities are efficiently stopped by censorship on the largest social media platforms... so what are you suggesting? That we continue to employ inefficient censorship (which gets also abused all the time by governments around the world), or do you have any actual solution? If not, this sounds a lot like virtue signalling to me.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#15

Post by leesalminen »

packetlost wrote: post #10

As a crypto-skeptic (lol), I really like Nostr. Unfortunately, I don't think it will catch on until someone takes the time to shave off the sharp technical edges and figure out spam + identity verification. The current Nostr network is full of cult-like bitcoin cryptobros, racist Twitter/Fediverse refugees, and spam. Lots, and lots of spam. But the technology is cool af and could be made into something more.

I’ve switched over to only private and/or paid relays and don’t experience any spam whatsoever. Not that this is the best solution to spam, but it has been effective.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#16

Post by apsurd »

> Software for chatting on the Internet should be small and fun.

Small and fun is the magic here. There's immense product insight in building a product experience that feels really small, intimate. It's the counterbalance to the unwieldy scale of Big Tech.

We're in the natural cycle of things, I'm just saying I seem to really get the feeling "the future is small", if that makes sense. It's quite stressful to navigate the entire planet's information and inventory.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#17

Post by leesalminen »

EGreg wrote: post #9

How is this different than Secure Scuttlebutt? I remember following that for a while. Dominic Tarr invented that. Also Dat / Hypercore from Matthias Mullie, powering Beaker Browser

Nostr’s GitHub page discusses the issues with SSB.

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr#the-problem-with-ssb...

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#18

Post by leesalminen »

breck wrote: post #7

What is the best Nostr web client?

That’s pretty subjective. I happen to like astral, though many say it’s too slow for them. I think a lot of people are using coracle, snort.social, and iris. There are a lot of other ones under active development.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#19

Post by leesalminen »

b3nji wrote: post #8
eykanal wrote: post #3

Saying "I don't want censorship" is equivalent to saying "I'm fine with people using my tool for coffee meetups, genocide planning, bridge club, and drug deals." It's an attempted handwashing of moral responsibility under the cover of software purity. At this point, it's pretty well documented that social media _as a tool_ has increased young female mental illness; the question is only "how much" [1]. To try to wave…

Arguably, the erosion of mental health could be laid at the feet of greedy corporations using algos to push hate, and division for eyeballs to advertisers. Isn't Nostr algo free? Isn't it just a messaging service?

Yes, nostr is just a protocol. There is no inherent algorithm. A client could choose to implement one and users could then choose to just migrate to a different client without one. All I want is a reverse chronological feed of posts from people I follow. That’s it. And right now the nostr clients deliver that.

Re: Nostr (“Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays”) – An Introduction

#20

Post by meibo »

leesalminen wrote: post #13
meibo wrote: post #11

Anything Jack is involved in is tainted for me until further notice. I wouldn't even dare to touch any of his new platforms, seeing his connections with Elon and how his judgement failed so spectacularly with the Twitter deal - it's not worth it, just to be sold out again when he gets bored of it or it doesn't end up being a business. At least he admitted to it. I'm not saying Mastodon is the solution, but at least n…

> how his judgement failed so spectacularly with the Twitter deal A CEO doesn’t approve an acquisition in a publicly traded company. The Board of Directors decide. > or has full control over the protocol and the app. Jack does not have any control over the nostr protocol. He may arguably have some control over one of the iOS client apps (due to him finding the dev), but that’s about it. I was an organizer of nostrica…

> A CEO doesn’t approve an acquisition in a publicly traded company. The Board of Directors decide.

Don't put words in my mouth. It may not entirely have been his decision, but nobody forced him to go on Twitter to say that he "chose him" and that he "believes it with all his heart"[0]. You cannot possibly tell me that you think that he was uninvolved in setting up the deal. Him being friends with Elon for ages is public track record.

> Jack does not have any control over the nostr protocol.

Jack is bankrolling the founder of the protocol with more than $240k. If you think that a SV CEO is doing that because he wants to create a better world, good on you. If you have any evidence that that doesn't give him any control, I'd be happy to see it. I feel like it's valid to be a little sceptical.

[0] https://theprint.in/tech/jack-dorsey-says-elon-musk-is-singu...

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