“my emails are just not delivered anymore. I might as well not have an email server.”
FUD. I and many others on HN run our own email servers with essentially no delivery problems.
Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
51–60 of 171 posts
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#52Reading the comments below make me feel like I should maybe be expected to already know what nostr is. But anyway, I don't and reading this article, it felt like it just suddenly cut off at the end. It explained all the traditional approaches, which are all able to help discoverability and shareability of data between servers, and then says "the solution is relays" and then describes something that doesn't seem to be…
Check the outbox model: https://nostrify.dev/relay/outbox
Why would "every relay getting pummeled by a load of clients simultaneously, all trying to push the same message"?
Relays get one client pushing one message. That one message is pushed to multiple relays. To your own preferred relays, as well as to the preferred relays of others who are involved in the conversation, as well as to a couple of global relays for easy discoverability.
These global relays are useful, but are interchangeable and totally replaceable. As soon as you've connected with someone you can retrieve their updates, because you know their preferred relays, and can query them directly.
In this way Nostr has the benefits of centralised networks for discoverability, federated networks for communities, and private individual web site for p2p and archival purposes.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#53Every social media platform needs to a solution to:
1. Content discovery
2. Spam
3. Content moderation
I can see relays offering unique solutions to each one. But now they are more than just dumb servers.
You get to the point where you might as well just write posts locally then submit them to X, Facebook, etc. You get the same result. And if you include a cryptographic signature with each post, you can prove you are the same person across the different platforms.
Boom. Same as Nostr, but with existing platforms
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#54P2P with end-to-end encryption over relays existed in 2001 (e.g. Groove, Mojo Nation) and wasn't invented by Nostr. Nostr is so simple because it handwaves away the fact that everybody seems to use the same small set of relays and there's nothing stopping them from censoring the network. I'm also not aware of any incentives for the relay operators either.
Nostr has the benefits of centralised networks for discoverability, federated networks for communities, and private individual web site for p2p and archival purposes.
As I have said in other replies to this post, read up on the outbox model. Global relays are useful, but are interchangeable and totally replaceable. As soon as you've connected with someone you can retrieve their updates, because you know their preferred relays, and can query them directly.
And there are incentives to running a global or community relay. Read up on Zaps. With Nostr, you can give real value via the lightning network, and it is built into the protocol. This allows you to charge for usage if you so desire. And then there's all the other reasons why people run community web sites or global services.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#55P2P with end-to-end encryption over relays existed in 2001 (e.g. Groove, Mojo Nation) and wasn't invented by Nostr. Nostr is so simple because it handwaves away the fact that everybody seems to use the same small set of relays and there's nothing stopping them from censoring the network. I'm also not aware of any incentives for the relay operators either.
This exactly. Worth mentioning that "censoring" can occur in any of a number of ways; blocking select traffic, slowing select traffic, "forgetting" specific nodes, redirecting other nodes at will, performing MITM attacks (if the protocol isn't secure), etc etc. Also, beyond just no positive incentives, there are nontrivial negatives... they're hubs for an entire network, which can be a lot of traffic and bandwidth if…
Read up on the outbox model and zaps. Also check out Bitchat for a real world example of Nostr being effectively used without even requiring Internet connectivity.
You cannot censor Nostr.
Also, check out how zaps work, and relay authentication. You can charge for relays if you want.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#56It 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.
Nostr doesn't even have the decoupling afforded by what we typically think of when we think of federated networks (email, activitypub, matrix). If you and another party aren't using the same relay, there is 0 way for you to interact. It assumes either you pre-agree on a relay (sticky defaults encouraging centralization) or shotgun messages to many relays (economies of scale encourgaing centralization). The protocol e…
This is not true. Read up on the outbox model. I have linked it elsewhere in replies in this thread.
You post to your own preferred relays, as well as to the preferred relays of others who are involved in the conversation, as well as to a couple of global relays for easy discoverability.
These global relays are useful, but are interchangeable and totally replaceable. As soon as you've connected with someone you can retrieve their updates, because you know their preferred relays, and can query them directly.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#57The presentation of blockchains as some kind of historical imperative would be downright Marx-like if it weren't for the primary difference that Marx put some thought into justifying his position. It's eminently possible to cryptographically secure software without lugging around an immutable distributed database because you're emotionally invested in the idea.
the blockchain is useful in solving double-spending problems in purely p2p applications. Aside from cryptocurrency, take for example name systems like namecoin or ENS: these systems need a way of reconciling who owns what, which involves synchronizing some data across the whole network. It is inefficient, but the inefficiency seems to lie at some fundamental problem with p2p. Centralized systems need to do the same s…
blockchain isn't inefficient because it's p2p. it's inefficient because it assumes peers are untrustworthy and solves for that by imposing a proof of work, requiring cooperative peers to waste more electricity than bad actors.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#58Every social media platform needs to a solution to: 1. Content discovery 2. Spam 3. Content moderation I can see relays offering unique solutions to each one. But now they are more than just dumb servers. You get to the point where you might as well just write posts locally then submit them to X, Facebook, etc. You get the same result. And if you include a cryptographic signature with each post, you can prove you are…
"Boom. Same as Nostr, but with existing platforms" - Except without the ability to give and receive real value via zaps, and at the risk of being censored, and losing your entire audience at the whim of the network operators.
Spam is basically a solved issue. There's both proof of work and paid relays, not to mention web or trust. It has been at absolute worst a minor annoyance.
There's plenty of ways to discover content on Nostr, from hashtags to channels to location based chats to just following some interesting people. It's perhaps not as frictionless as X, but imho that's a feature not a bug.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#59For 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?
There was a “nature keeps evolving crabs” meme that was floating around a while back, I think it is a reference to that. I was also disappointed by the lack of nature, evolution, and crabs in the article.
Re: Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
#60I think the people with the soundest minds are the ones who are willing to accept that the idea of social networks as they used to be are going the way of the TRL countdown.
And what they’re about to become is going to be something more like political yard signs.