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Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

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Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of nature's many attempts to evolve an atproto. (We are of course all evolving, and the destination is yet to be discovered)

I've been looking at that for quite some time, even met teams members developing the product. Sorry to say: both are fundamentally different technologies and philosophies. NOSTR "accounts" are meant to trivially generated and used outside the context of micro-blogging. That is the reason for being popular, the npub becomes a signature that validates texts and there is value in that. AT always feels like mastodon meet…

I wouldn't write ATProto off as just microblogging, there are a bunch of interesting (and exciting depending on your POV) apps out there that _aren't_ microblogging apps. To name a few:

* https://stream.place

* https://tangled.org

* https://www.germnetwork.com/

* https://slices.network/

* https://smokesignal.events/

* https://www.graze.social/

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#12

We already see "paid relays" and relays that filter certain content, even as small as nostr is today. I think the end state, if it manages to really catch on, is going to be as "oligarchical" as mastodon or other federated networks today - just via relays instead of via homeservers. A step in the right direction for sure! But I don't feel like Nostr is the final target that nature is shooting for here.

The solution to bad relays is to just use different relays. Changing your relays is just a matter of publishing a new 10002 relay list, and optionally copying over your old notes (or reseeding them from local backups).

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#13
It has been long predicted that federated models (like Nostr) just degrade into a few providers that monetize in the same way they would if the network was centralized. It's the worst of both worlds between centralization and real decentralization — which (unfortunately to the haters) almost certain requires Byzantine fault tolerant consensus (blockchains).

Same thing over and over again.

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#14
post #10

I feel projects like nostr ignore inherent human requirements for social networks. This is a striking quote from their landing page: "Nostr doesn't subscribe to political ideals of "free speech" — it simply recognizes that different people have different morals and preferences and each server, being privately owned, can follow their own criteria for rejecting content as they please and users are free to choose what t…

One could easily test the author's conviction on "rejecting content as they please" by spamming them with horrible stuff for a few months and the author would learn why 100% of content moderation should not be pushed on the individual user.

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#16
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that it existed well before, the difference is that it was always complicated to use. Heck, we have been able to send PGP emails since almost 30 years ago. The innovative concept is that npub/nsec along with sending notes is trivially simple. The content does not need to encrypted, there is a huge value on publishing clear text messages that are crypto-verifiable. You also didn't had this feature on g…

there is a huge value on... You could say that if Nostr was successful but it isn't. Nostr has <1% the DAU of Bluesky.

And yet here we are talking about NOSTR, again. :-)

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been looking at that for quite some time, even met teams members developing the product. Sorry to say: both are fundamentally different technologies and philosophies. NOSTR "accounts" are meant to trivially generated and used outside the context of micro-blogging. That is the reason for being popular, the npub becomes a signature that validates texts and there is value in that. AT always feels like mastodon meet…

I wouldn't write ATProto off as just microblogging, there are a bunch of interesting (and exciting depending on your POV) apps out there that _aren't_ microblogging apps. To name a few: * https://stream.place * https://tangled.org * https://www.germnetwork.com/ * https://slices.network/ * https://smokesignal.events/ * https://www.graze.social/

I'll check them later. Thank you for the list.

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#18

It has been long predicted that federated models (like Nostr) just degrade into a few providers that monetize in the same way they would if the network was centralized. It's the worst of both worlds between centralization and real decentralization — which (unfortunately to the haters) almost certain requires Byzantine fault tolerant consensus (blockchains). Same thing over and over again.

It's a little different to federated networks like GNU Social/Mastadon since the data and the relay are separate. You can post the same data to multiple relays and read from many relays simultaneously. Meaning you aren't tied to picking a single relay with network effects, and although a big relay going offline might cause temporary chaos, it's fairly easy for new ones to be set up and added to clients, without having to explicitly move things like accounts and so on.

Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr

#19
For who might be pulled in by the vague title, not knowing what a nostr is, thinking this article has anything to do with evolution - it has nothing to do with evolution or nature. Not one example of nature trying to evolve a nostr is descibed.

Maybe like... the author thought a nostr is similar to, I dunno, a pack or tribe or something?

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