Earlier this week I made a note (@note1h4p5zvdn98gkqdandm7j00f3v5m4nr3wg5yspa8xre8hrcppxgkqv03t4m) about my thoughts on the current state of nostr, and more specifically, nostr adoption. I wanted to clarify some points & elaborate more on that note. I’m glad there was some discussion surrounding this topic, but I think some things were taken out of context so I just wanted to follow up.
I’m a hardcore bitcoin maxi with unwavering conviction. There is no better money for the world, and the internet, than bitcoin. I believe talking about bitcoin and spreading the word about it is one of the greatest ways to contribute to the movement for those of us who aren’t developers and don’t work for bitcoin companies. I’ve also learned that there is a time and place for orange pilling and that there’s nothing a no coiner hates more than a person trying to force some strange magic internet money on them 24/7 when their “bank account works just fine” (lol). Nothing I said here was meant to sound like I’m telling people to just stop talking about bitcoin entirely and I realize it may have sounded that way, so I apologize for that. The entire point of the note was to try and get us thinking about ways in which nostr can branch out and become a place even nocoiners desire feel naturally drawn to.
We are early. To both bitcoin and nostr. Many people don’t know anything about bitcoin. Even less know anything about nostr. Since I came back and scrolled I’ve seen a lot of new users popping up and the nostr welcoming committee doing its thing as always. I think I poorly worded part of the note when I said “nostr adoption is fully tied to bitcoin adoption”. I think a better way to encompass what I was saying is that with the current nostr environment “nostr adoption will correlate to bitcoin adoption”. What I meant by this part was that there are a lot of people who will not even consider Nostr because of bitcoin, and therefore, they won't even try nostr until they understand bitcoin isn’t some scammy enterprise. Whether you agree or disagree, I honestly don’t care and it really doesn’t matter whether we agree in the grand scheme of things. This was just an opinion I formed based on my personal experiences of purple pilling and orange pilling.
Because we are so early, I am of the belief that the easiest way to get normies to adopt nostr and feel comfortable with it is by just explaining the basics and letting them play around with it on their own. By basics I mean: how to set your pfp, how to add and remove relays, what the different clients are, how the protocol actually works. In my opinion (and depending on who the new person is) zaps are a different discussion because that entails the person being comfortable with bitcoin and nostr (again, you can disagree with me, these are my opinions). Newborn ostriches already have to get comfortable using a new protocol, and I think adding the bitcoin factor on top of that can be spooky for them - in fact, I’ve seen them get spooked by this. Again, this depends on the audience you’re speaking to. I’m not here to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do, and I have no authority to do so. I’m just writing down my perspective, so if you feel that explaining zaps is helpful in purple pilling someone, then by all means do so. All I know is that I will save the zap conversation for a second discussion, instead of including it in the first.
I’m not a developer and from a non-developer standpoint, all of the devs building on top of nostr blow my mind every time I come to this place. Nothing I said in my previous note, nor anything I say in this note is meant to be a nudge at any devs.
With all of that said, I think the main issue with new users feeling uncomfortable is (1) the lack of content discovery and (2) the abundance of repetitive content. Most people are used to being fed their preferred content by an algorithm, instead of having to go out looking for it. Currently, users have to browse the spammy global feed, hashtags, and others profiles just to find someone who has common interests. By the time they do that, they’re inevitably going to be exposed to the bitcoin conversation here, which may scare them off because it will feel unavoidable (reminder: I’m not telling you to stop talking about bitcoin). With that in mind, I think it would be cool to see two things made easier: (1) content discovery and (2) avoiding certain content. What are my suggestions to solve this?
Again, I’m not a developer, and I’m certainly not telling developers what to do, but I think pulling some ideas from old socials are worth a discussion. If someone wants to act on these, cool. If not, also cool. I’m just making suggestions:
- Searchable words/phrases: it would be nice to be able to just search words and show notes containing those words (this would also be helpful for finding some of your own past notes). “Sports” “Art” “Doctors” etc. whatever your interests are, this would make it incredibly easier to discover content that you like. Hashtags are good but anyone can add any hashtag to the end of a note even if the note has nothing to do with that hashtag (see: plethora of bitcoin posts under #grownostr). Perhaps even having clients recommend a certain hashtag (#introduction) for your first post upon sign up could be beneficial. I think there's a client that does this but I can't remember so I apologize for not giving you the props, whoever you are.
- Trending topics: by seeing what topics are being talked about the most, you wouldn’t need to search anything to find a topic you may be interested in, and can hop right into the discussion. (would this be considered an “algorithm”? I wouldn't consider it one) Nostr.band is great for this, but integration into clients would be incredible. Obviously, bitcoin, zaps, etc would probably always be trending, which brings me to my next idea.
- Mute words: someone says they don’t want to join nostr because they don’t want to hear about bitcoin all day? Cool, just mute the word bitcoin and your client won’t show you any notes containing the word bitcoin. This would also allow for individuals to mute words that could be offensive to them like racial slurs. Some of you are going to say this is censorship, and if you believe that it is, you have a very broad (and wrong) definition of censorship.
- Nostr Welcome guides: of course we have welcome guides already. I’ve probably seen about 10 or so of them. But they all mention zaps near immediately. I think there should be more guides that either don’t mention zaps/bitcoin, or at least mention it as a secondary aspect instead of a main part of setting up your account. After all, zaps aren’t required to use nostr (remember when we used nostr without zaps? feels like years ago) and I’m sure in the future there will be plenty of people who don’t use them at all, at least for a while.
Debunking Nostr Misconceptions: Lastly, at some point I’m going to write an article, or even make a website that debunks nostr misconceptions. Number 1 being that nostr is a bitcoin project. I will be pretty busy these next couple weeks and then I’ll have a break before being booked all summer for the bar exam, so if anyone wants to assist me in making this, or make your own version, please do. I think this could be extremely helpful in circulating outside of nostr so that people who don’t know much about it can read about what nostr truly is, and hopefully give them to courage to test it out.
Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.