shark_laser

> I've sometimes dreamed of a web where every resource is tied to a hash, which can be rehosted by third parties, making archival transparent. This would also make it trivial to stand up a small website without worrying about it get hug-of-deathed, since others would rehost your content for you. Shame IPFS never went anywhere.

You've just described Nostr: Content that is tied to a hash (so its origin and authenticity can be verified) that is hosted by third parties (or yourself if you want)

What did you think was going to happen when you've got guaranteed payments and a growing customer base as people celebrate their "neurodiversity" whilst at the same time demanding subsidies and yelling "ableist" at anyone who criticises them or the system?

So politicians pretend to care by throwing more money at their cronies and get away with it because won't someone PLEASE think of the children. And then people pat them on back and vote for them in the next election, and blame "capitalism" while the people they've just voted back in make millions.

They even say "We're also dealing with children who are largely insured by Medicaid programs" and yet still people are failing to join the dots...

Yep. And you still de-anonymise yourself with Mastodon when you buy hosting and a domain. If you use an existing provider, then you're back at square one and living in hope that the provider doesn't keep logs etc, or just decide they don't like you.

Nostr fixes both of these. So whilst you're at the mercy of relays storing your data, you can at least be anonymous.

I'm still confused about why multiple clients would be pushing the same message, especially given that Nostr events are signed, but that's by the by.

I think "without further implementation details" is the key point here. Client developers usually have these. Sure, Nostr is still small, but there's several clever ways of dealing with scalability issues. Not least of which is the outbox model, linked in my first post.

Your criticisms of the article are valid tho. And I don't think it is unique in its failing. Perhaps Nostr's fatal flaw is in the way it is being sold by its fans, myself included.

But that's OK. It will take off as Bitchat, or Primal, or whatever the next iteration is that figures out a way of selling Nostr's benefits, without confusing people with its implementation.

Please take a look at my other replies to other posts.

Read about the outbox model, or Bitchat.

The large relays are not required. They are a public service but not essential. There are plenty of community relays charging for access too, and the outbox model means you're not even depending on them. Nostr can and does successfully operate via even Bluetooth Mesh Networks. Search up Bitchat and see how it has been used in Nepal, Indonesia, and elsewhere.

Proof of Work secures Bitcoin, and people definitely care about that.

I have posted very similar replies to other messages in this thread and don't want to repeat myself too much at the risk of being considered spam.

But... Outbox model prevents censorship because you push your (cryptographically signed and so impossible to impersonate) messages 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. As well as making it impossible to censor.

And if you take down THE ENTIRE INTERNET in order to censor Nostr? Well, Bitchat is Nostr via Bluetooth Mesh Networks. Do a quick search and find out where and when it has been used (Nepal, Indonesia, and elsewhere)

And as for zaps fixing the economic problem, I'm not sure what else to say other than you can give and receive value directly using the Lightning Network. It is seamless in most Nostr clients, and built into the Nostr protocol. If you don't believe in Value For Value (v4v) then you can just charge a fee, and the economics problem is solved.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Every time I see an article like this that doesn't mention Nostr I just shake my head...

White Noise is open source, and built on Nostr, a decentralised and open protocol.

Run your own fork if you don't trust this one.