Anyone who thinks that “onboarding new users” is simply a technical challenge of educating people about “how Nostr works”, is grossly mistaken about social networks in general and blind to what makes Nostr so special.
Social Networks are for Friends
Relationship building is why people use social networks. Connecting with friends and loved ones (and colleagues and customers also) is the obvious reason to join, and should be the primary objective in any onboarding endeavor. Everything else “about the technology” only needs to be introduced “as needed” in order for each new user to achieve this goal.
The Nostr Network Requires Trusted Friendships
To thrive at scale, Nostr needs to have established and interconnected “webs of trusted friends” for “verifying” authentic profiles and quality content. This PgP strategy for decentralized trust implemented on Nostr, is the best way to keep bots and bad actors at bay while preserving freedom and sovereignty for every user. Even though Nostr still doesn’t have a standard for determining who “is trusted” for any one user across all clients, we can already build tools to onboard new friends of the highest quality trust. Leveraging existing relationships, “webs of trust” can be strengthened even at this early stage simply by advocates “inviting friends to Nostr”.
Nostr is New and Already Full of Trusted Friends
But it won’t be for long. Bots and bad actors are relatively “easy” to keep at bay today because the Nostr userbase is still small. People who come to Nostr and STAY have mostly been a self selecting group of “freedom tech fans”. We like it this way, and are generally happy to be here. The comraderie is refreshing. But the more people that come to Nostr, the more Nostr will attract different kinds of people.
This is already happening. Nostr is growing at the edges, reaching out beyond the “freedom tech fans” and attracting a number of “less committed” (and some nefarious) individuals here and there. Who sticks around? The “friends of freedom tech fans” stick around longer because they have friends here. WAY BEFORE even considering how “the network effect” will take over, Nostr needs to solve for retention by bringing more “trusted friends” into the network. Social onboarding tools will allow us to share Nostr to “friends of freedom tech fans” and beyond, establishing interconnected “webs of trust” that are increasingly impermeable to bots and bad actors.
Nostr is Freedom Tech that People Want to Share
Creators and influencers of every kind share Nostr (and Nostr content) every day. This phenomenon is a gold mine for onboarding, and can be supported with tools and incentives. Driven by the fact that Nostr is an open protocol, owned by nobody and available for anybody to build upon and profit from, the passion for sharing Nostr will never wane. But our userbase may fall off, if people become disenchanted by undesirable content or lack of good follows. This is why onboarding efforts, to attract more “friends” to the network, are so important. Leveraging the “share worthy” phenomenon of Nostr itself to grow Nostr’s networks of “trusted friends” seems like a no brainer. But for this strategy to work, it needs to be win win win for all parties.
Everybody Wins with More Trusted Friends on Nostr
- Developers win by being able to attract more long term and diverse sponsorships.
- Investors win by earning ROI in the businesses they are staked in.
- Advocates win by being rewarded for their onboarding efforts.
- Users win by having more trustworthy content and friends to choose from.
- Nostr wins by having a robust web of trust as the backbone of its network.
- In time, the whole world wins by having Nostr at global scale.
Social Onboarding Clients are on the Horizon
Having more tools for “sharing Nostr with friends” is how Nostr wins. Any client can have capacity for “Social Onboarding”. This may be a dedicated onboarding client or a feature set within a social client. A client that offers “Social Onboarding” will support Nostr advocates and the users that they invite. These should have the following feature set :
- Nostr advocates may create and share any number of customizable “Nostr invites” for different audiences or occasions. Each may have different reccomendations, or access codes, or expiry options. (A NIP is in the works)
- Nostr invite QR codes (and shareable URLs) should resolve to a WEB based interface for prospective (and existing) users who MAY NOT have a client or browser extension already installed.
- Each invite should (within the onboarding client) provide access to low friction profile creation AND advocate reccomended lists of new friends, interest groups, preferred clients, best relays, and other stuff.
- Private key generation and management for new users should be handled entirely within the onboarding client (using NIP standards without a browser extension or exteranal bunker app) to reduce friction at this crucial moment.
- A human readable Nostr address (NIP05 or some future NIP) should be generated automatically for all new users.
- New account creation should result immediately in a direct message or group thread of private “gift wrap” encrypted messages. This thread acts as the new user’s “first contact” with the advocate (possibly others as well) and an anchor for exploring the rest of Nostr.
- Invite “receipt” data (who invited who) should be “gift wrap” encrypted, accessible only to the advocate and new user. Clients wishing to use this data for analytics MAY request access from BOTH parties.
- Top Advocates may be calculated by the client (using data from invite receipts OR from public Nostr usage metrics), and awards may be offered.
- Advocates may also be supported by the client through access to private “advocate support” groups and communities over the Nostr network.
I am building such a client as reference model for “Social Onboarding”. It’s currently in alpha (pre MVP) release. With funding, Meet Me On Nostr will be a feature complete social onboarding client by fall 2024.
Nostr’s Superpower will be Released
When Nostr advocates are equipped and incentivized to share Nostr with their friends, nothing can stop this network from growing and growing and growing ever more secure and interconnected networks of trusted users.
Onboarding and retaining trusted users as Nostr scales will require so much more than just pointing people to “how Nostr works” content. Nostr’s true power lies dormant in the existing relationships that Nostr users already have outside of Nostr. Leveraging this power is what Social Onboarding is all about. Social Onboarding is Nostr’s superpower.