The potential for nostr and the tension between developers, the protocol and the individual.
A quick look at my feed will confirm I'm neither a developer nor a techie. Before nostr I never used social media, well I tried all the usual flavours but something didn't feel right and my trials never lasted long.
So why is nostr different?
Nostr, as far as I understand, is a protocol, so it's not like X or Facebook or whatever, it's more like http, which is the web protocol or smtp, which is an email protocol. Yet non-techies no longer even know what http is, never mind talk about it so what makes nostr different, will it endure as a collective term or will fade and disappear in time?
A significant difference in using a nostr app is, to my understanding, that when you post something on your preferred app, that content is stored, not within the app itself, but in multiple places outside and no longer in the control of the app. To a non-techie this is quite a hard concept to grasp, because it is counter-intuitive to what our use of apps has conditioned us to understand, which is, we go into the app to find the ‘stuff’ we posted there.
The second significant difference are the terms npub and nsec, which, again to my limited undemanding, might be equated with being my username and my key. My username is my identity, which I can share and my key is what I use to create new notes under my username. It is important to note for new users that mine is the only key that will create new notes under my username. Again this is quite a departure for users of traditional apps, which have used the access security of their containers to build confidence and trust with their users.
What will encourage users to try nostr?
To those early adopters of nostr, trust might not seem like a big deal yet potentially this is the biggest challenge nostr app developers will face in encouraging users to shift away from traditional apps. Censorship as a reason to migrate will only attract those who are concerned about it or who have experienced it, but that is no where near the majority.
Nor will word of mouth encourage the millions of X, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat users to leave their legacy, friends and communities behind.
Does nostr simply have to be better in multiple ways than the existing traditional app?
It is hard to imagine a future of nostr users in the billions, but maybe such exercises are worth attempting in order to help app developers choose what to work on today.
Will nostr require a consortium similar to W3C who maintain the http protocol?
How will users protect their identity from theft? Can their nsec be linked to face id?
How will app developers build trust with users?
Will a time arrive, in the same way that app developers sought to colonise the web, when nostr app developers will shift their focus to their own brand promotion in a competition for users to use their app?
Will someone build a dominant nostr search algorithm, similar to Google, or will Google expand their search to incorporate nostr?
The future.
If the nostr user base does continue to grow, the direction and flow of users collective behaviour will start to change from what it is today, driving app developers in new directions and undoubtedly attracting the attention of the existing corporate giants, who will seek to colonise and monetise this new frontier, as is their nature, and nostr app developers will need to beadaptable to survive.
However, the aspect of 'transferable identity' is an inherent balancing characteristic between the centralising pull of the corporate machine and the chaotic decentralising forces of individual idiosyncrasies, which offered great hope.
The ability to successfully maintain this balance creates a great opportunity for individuals and will potentially support society(s) to successfully bridge the gap between the present and a new world order?
#note
