corndalorian on Nostr: Coming back to this to share some thoughts. It’s exciting to see these kinds of ...

Coming back to this to share some thoughts. It’s exciting to see these kinds of conversations happening. Kudos to you and paulinthejungle (npub1spd…q6j7) and the rest of the Primal team for taking this topic seriously.

I’ll start with my overall impression, and then share some bullet points below with more specific feedback.

I believe the strategy you outlined leans in the right direction, but it’s also lacking in some very important ways, especially when it comes to understanding the culture on nostr. I think if you tried to do this exactly as you outlined, it would fall flat here because it’s not geared toward nostr culture. At best, it may see a little burst of enthusiasm for a short time from those who are eager to see ANY growth, and then it would fizzle out rather quickly.

Every social app/platform, including nostr, has a culture that naturally emerges from its features and the content and interactions it fosters. Understanding “nostr culture” in that context is key to any creator/artist being successful with their content.

Nostr doesn’t simply need more content. Nostr needs more creators/artists who will make nostr a key part of their social strategy, who will spend time here interacting BACK AND FORTH WITH other people here. That is how they will bring an existing audience from other platforms, and how they will build rapport with people on nostr who weren’t part of their existing audience. AUTHENTICITY IS KEY.

I encourage you and Paul and the Primal team to put a LOT of work and thought into understanding nostr culture as you develop growth strategies.

Some specific feedback:
- Recruiting and incentivizing creators/artists with existing audiences makes perfect sense.
- Don’t automate cross posts, ESPECIALLY without consent from the original creators. Crossposting doesn’t work as well on most platforms anyway, and it completely fails here. It’s inauthentic, and feels empty and spammy. Just don’t do it and don’t encourage it.
- Content on other platforms is made to appease that particular algorithm. It won’t necessarily make sense here. Don’t cross post.
- I repeat, don’t cross post.
- Don’t target large creator accounts. They are established on their existing platforms, and until they get cancelled or demonetized there, they aren’t going to give nostr the attention/time necessary to succeed here. Even if they try nostr out, they end up leaving because they need to give their main platforms attention. We’ve seen this a few times, probably most recently with Ian Carroll. Big entrance. Several of his followers from TikTok/X joined nostr. After about a few weeks they disappeared, along with Ian.
- Target small to medium creators/artists who are taking their craft and social activity seriously, but are stagnating on other platforms. They have a receptive audience, but they aren’t able to monetize in any meaningful way there, if at all. Incentivize them to focus most of their social media strategy on nostr.
- Nostr is not great for all types of content right now, even though it could be in the future as better tools are built, and we might not know what tools need to be built until more people are using it and the need becomes clear and worth the time it would take to create them.
- Zaps are simultaneously one of nostr’s most powerful features, and one of its biggest obstacles. Bitcoin is key to making nostr a truly a global platform for creators/artists, but there is no avoiding the fact that most people don’t use bitcoin as a method of payment. That number is even low among active nostr users, and it is nearly non-existent on the internet at large.