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Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

nostr.org

11–20 of 198 posts

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#11
post #4

The thing with Nostr is that the protocol spec expressly forbids relays from forwarding messages to each other. What this means is that users trying to reach each other need to shotgun messages to many relays, or congregate around specific ones. User profile data will list the relays they listen on, but this suffers from the problem of sticky defaults and makes client authors the kingmakers. There's lots of centraliz…

it doesn't explicitly forbdit it. It just doesn't spec it out, because it doesn't need it for the protocol to work. There are already many relays and clients that do just this.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#12

Funny timing on this - I just came across my backed up keys recently and signed back into it. Poking around over the last 24 hours has left me underwhelmed in terms of actual interesting content (I'm not a cryptobro) nor overly innovative things built on top of the protocol. Those who are finding it useful - can you give me some direction on things I may have missed? It feels less useful than blsky which feels less u…

Social media is one of its most underwhelming usecases, there's loads of productivity apps building on it like if you look that formstr ecosystem (about.formstr.app) and gaming ecosystem as well, it's really just a new communication medium

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#13
post #10

Nostr is cute but I feel it runs into xkcd 191. To paraphrase: > If you Used Nostr your communication would be completely uncensored and decentralized. > Yeah, but it would all be with the kind of people who use Nostr. As of now it’s filled with BTC-maxis / crypto bros that mainly talk about how great Nostr and Bitcoin are … and not much else. I suppose there’s plenty of tasteless AI slop and gross adult scams if tha…

The website mentions the network is pro-censorship: > Pro-censorship: The protocol is ownerless, relays are not > 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 to read and from wher…

From what I've gathered it's pro-censorship however since the user is entirely mobile and can change relays at will without friction that the power still remains with the user... the relay doesn't have much power in anything they can't keep their users from finding you, and they can't keep you from publishing elsewhere they can only choose to not accept your posts.

When I setup my account I list 3-4 relays that will host my content, if any one relay decides they dislike me and bans me no big deal everyone who follows me already knows to check 3-4 different servers for me and will find my content on the others, and I can update that list at any point in time just as quickly as I'm banned... so unless you can get every relay (which ideally are all individual groups with likely different rules / regulations) I publish to to ban me at the same time there is no real way to "censor" someone in the way we are used to currently.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#14

Funny timing on this - I just came across my backed up keys recently and signed back into it. Poking around over the last 24 hours has left me underwhelmed in terms of actual interesting content (I'm not a cryptobro) nor overly innovative things built on top of the protocol. Those who are finding it useful - can you give me some direction on things I may have missed? It feels less useful than blsky which feels less u…

Social media is one of its most underwhelming usecases, there's loads of productivity apps building on it like if you look that formstr ecosystem (about.formstr.app) and gaming ecosystem as well, it's really just a new communication medium

can you expand on the gaming ecosystem around it?

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#15
post #4

The thing with Nostr is that the protocol spec expressly forbids relays from forwarding messages to each other. What this means is that users trying to reach each other need to shotgun messages to many relays, or congregate around specific ones. User profile data will list the relays they listen on, but this suffers from the problem of sticky defaults and makes client authors the kingmakers. There's lots of centraliz…

But part of the protocol is that user profiles also list the relays where to find their content (where their posts go to) and a second user connects to those relays to fetch their content directly?

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#16

Funny timing on this - I just came across my backed up keys recently and signed back into it. Poking around over the last 24 hours has left me underwhelmed in terms of actual interesting content (I'm not a cryptobro) nor overly innovative things built on top of the protocol. Those who are finding it useful - can you give me some direction on things I may have missed? It feels less useful than blsky which feels less u…

It's a very rich protocol with many advanced features but here are the basics:

1. Like twitter/x: Follow people, post notes, write comments, use hashtags. Send direct messages (DM) 2. Like Instagram: watch/post just photos or just videos 3. Like ebay: Sell or buy stuff 4. Like reddit: join public communities and post or read 5. Like slack: create private groups for chatting with friends or colleagues 6. Like Skype/zoom: voice and video calls with a person or a group 7. Like twitch with live video streams 8. Like nothing else: send and receive bitcoin (lightning)

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#19

Funny timing on this - I just came across my backed up keys recently and signed back into it. Poking around over the last 24 hours has left me underwhelmed in terms of actual interesting content (I'm not a cryptobro) nor overly innovative things built on top of the protocol. Those who are finding it useful - can you give me some direction on things I may have missed? It feels less useful than blsky which feels less u…

I build edtechs apps with it. Lets me develop tech like the ability to create scholarships with learning, cross-platform badges/achievements and cool stuff like that.

Re: Nostr is an inclusive communication commons

#20
post #10

Nostr is cute but I feel it runs into xkcd 191. To paraphrase: > If you Used Nostr your communication would be completely uncensored and decentralized. > Yeah, but it would all be with the kind of people who use Nostr. As of now it’s filled with BTC-maxis / crypto bros that mainly talk about how great Nostr and Bitcoin are … and not much else. I suppose there’s plenty of tasteless AI slop and gross adult scams if tha…

The website mentions the network is pro-censorship: > Pro-censorship: The protocol is ownerless, relays are not > 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 to read and from wher…

Nostr relays can censor however much they want. And users can just add other relays and route around it. That's fundamentally different from most other protocols, where user identity and posts are tied to a single server, and there is no means to just broadcast to another one.

On Lemmy for example you can't even find a post another server, since post ids are tied to a server. So despite post actually being cached on multiple servers, it provides absolutely nothing that helps with censorship or crash tolleranze.

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