Wrote a post om how to access Nostr using the iris.to web client in case it helps: https://www.wedesoft.de/software/2023/04/25/nostr/
Nostr – Decentralized social network
71–80 of 170 posts
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#72This 'Nostr' thing will never take off, it has too much 'cryptocurrency' laden features that nobody asked for. yuck.
A culture of tipping for content you find valuable at the click of a button that works for people to cash out regardless of their jurisdiction is yucky to you? I guess, i see it as one of it's biggest selling points, however you can turn it off in some clients
You're twisting words. Tipping is not the problem here, it's the cryptocurrencies. If you can't see how people mistrust them then you're probably deeply invested in them yourself.
As long as there is no real value in the real world it will remain inflated by confidence, which reeks of scam. And no one pizza place here or a bitcoin atm there does not make a difference. So far the only real goods and services crypto has traded at scale are on an illegal black market.
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#73If you're on Android, use Amethyst. If you're on iOS, use Damus. If you're on the web, https://snort.social and https://iris.to 🫂
Also on web, https://satellite.earth if you prefer reading conversations as threaded comments
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's little spam at the moment. There will be. But at that time the relays (pieces of server software that relay nostr messages) can step in and implement spam control via whatever they see fit. Perhaps some smart filtering, perhaps pay a few sats to have a message relayed or perhaps some real name policy. Clients can pick a (set of) relay(s) which fit their preference best. Or not, and accept the default. The pro…
Could you expand on how relays differ (mostly conceptually) from something like Mastodon instances? Adding because Nostr seems to be marketed as something more decentralized than that, and I'd like to get a deeper understanding.
This is gossip protocol not a federated thing.
assuming it's the same as Scuttlebutt (also gossip protocol) a relay is literally just a relay. There's no "home server". You don't have an account on anyone's machine. You just shove data out to "people" who are listening to you. In scuttlebutt the relays are configured so that anyone can ask it to "follow" them and then they send their data to it. Anyone who listens to that relay can get any data the relay has.
in scuttlebutt the problem was that I never felt like i could trust a relay to exist for more than 6 months, so i just followed every one i could. No-one wants to set up a relay, and relays have to have a static domain / ip so that you know where to look for them. It's not like tor where you can just leave your computer on and that's good enough. I expect the same problems here.
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's little spam at the moment. There will be. But at that time the relays (pieces of server software that relay nostr messages) can step in and implement spam control via whatever they see fit. Perhaps some smart filtering, perhaps pay a few sats to have a message relayed or perhaps some real name policy. Clients can pick a (set of) relay(s) which fit their preference best. Or not, and accept the default. The pro…
Could you expand on how relays differ (mostly conceptually) from something like Mastodon instances? Adding because Nostr seems to be marketed as something more decentralized than that, and I'd like to get a deeper understanding.
You configure your client post your content to one or more relays. You can use relays that you setup for just yourself, paid relays, and/or free public relays.
When you follow someone, or someone follows you, the follower's client will get a list of relays the person they want to follow is posting to. The follower can connect to any of those relays and get any new content.
On many relays it's possible to get a firehose feed of everything posted to that relay. On free public relays this firehose feed may contain lots of spam accounts.
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#76Nostr doesn't need to become the new Twitter and I think it fills a fun niche but I think bluesky will eventually be that new Twitter because your average Joe just wants to go to twitter.com/whatever and not have to mess around with other people's domains, private keys, and whatever. Again, I think Nostr is great and eventually I imagine you can just push to both platforms but the people I follow on Twitter are not t…
In the same way your average person doesn't care about privacy, they don't care about Elon Musk's shenanigans. Twitter is not failing in the way his detractors continue to hope. Bluesky will never gain any more traction than Rumble, Truth, Gab, or Mastadon. It will fade into obscurity before even launching just like Clubhouse. Because offering the same exact service, with seemingly no visible changes, does not matter…
There's been a steady attrition of celebrities and other major players from the platform. social media platforms don't die overnight, they die over time.
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> anonymity are not really dealt with Why would you need to deal with anonymity?
Does Nostr have any mechanisms to ensure anonymity, or can the relay log everything?
> Does Nostr have any mechanisms to ensure anonymity
Your identity on the network is a public/private key pair. You don't have to associate your real name with your posts, if you don't want to. And you can have multiple key pair identities if you want.
Posts are plain text by default, but encrypted private messages can also be exchanged.
You can choose what relays to post to, and obfuscate your ip address with a vpn or tor if you desire.
> can the relay log everything
Yes, subject to the above mitigations.
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nostr is a discovery powerhouse that enables content to be easily discovered across platforms without gatekeeping. For creators this is great news because they can just publish in one place and be in all (willingly) participating clients/apps. Beyond the marketing barf, what makes this a "discovery powerhouse"? From the description, it doesn't sound any different from Mastodon, or having an email newsletter, or pub…
Network effects. Every new app that joins grows the network without the content creator having to do anything new.
If I joined today for example, how would I come across something you posted? The user increment is +1, but that's just the potential number of people you could reach. Somebody would have to the equivalent of re-tweeting, for your content to be visible on their profile, and discoverable by others.
Is that different from say, Mastodon?
Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see much spam. It's far, far less than Twitter. I can mute people I don't want to see. And I can be anonymous if I want. What exactly did you mean?
Is it possible you don’t see much spam because it’s currently not big enough to be worth spamming?
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Re: Nostr – Decentralized social network
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