#GN my #Nostriches
So while we been taking the summer off from the pod, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what is the next evolution of conversation for us to discuss. And lately I've been drawn to nostr. I'm gonna riff some ideas off before while they are still fresh in my head.
#1 Nostr hardware
I think companies like umbrel and start 9 are fundamentally flawed. They are selling specialized hardware to run docker images of servers. I think they should be selling specialized hardware to run a suite of Nostr only applications. I shouldn't have to docker compose my applications. They should run from any compatible nostr relay I point my client to. And should I have to lose years of data because some company went out of business. Anyone should be able to pick up where'd the failed business left off. I should never lose an application to time again if I willing to run my own nostr relay.
# nostr as an OS
Building on the above idea this means that we have a decentralized operating system. Where there is no such thing as "that app doesn't work any more"
# sovereign nostr businesses
I think after some the major projects shutting down like mutiny, we need a new category of nips. I think we need the nip-b. Where b stands for business. The nips in addition to locking in A set of events to power application. They also present a business model of the application can self fund itself. These Nostr businesss them become something like guilds w/o the geographic monopoly. If these businesses operate on Bitcoin only, then under which jurisdiction is it taxed if at all? These businesses would truly be sovereign as long as they only do business with other sovereign entities. I'll admit this one is a stretch that brings me to last thought.
# I think I've come up with one
I've been working on this idea for the last 6 months and I think this would fall under my definition on nip-b. What I'm proposing is a decentralized ad network that anyone can opt-in and opt-out at will turning your attention into a commodity. So I guess it's it's the ad marketers guild working to every one the most value for their attention. I imagine the best in the industry that are drawn to nostr as well will be able to help make the best decentralized ad network that removes the scammy parts of the business no one is incentized to ruin their business. This is very similar to Bitcoin mining. They all are working in the service of the commodity Bitcoin. And no one is incentivized to run a mining operation that would be detrimental to Bitcoin.
https://github.com/Promoted-Note-Network/promoted-note-network
quotingPSA 🚨
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Without a direct innovation in the monetization structure of #Nostr I think we should expect a highly successful #Nostr to evolve like other protocols before it. I think there are 2 most likely comparisons:
1. #Nostr ends up looking more like email. It is still open and decentralized, but dominated by a small group of companies with enormous insight into everything that is happening and acting as huge semi-centralized custodians of everyone's data and messages.
2. #Nostr ends up looking more like RSS & podcasts. It is open and decentralized, but most users and all serious content creators pay for hosting platforms (relays) that sell it with a bunch of other features, analytics, and secondary services attached to it - or built in advertising and monetization splits.
Understand I'm not predicting that it will go either direction or that only these two options exist. I'm saying that --- without a significant innovation in the monetization method --- it will very likely take one of these two paths. Also understand that neither of these are bad outcomes, per se. Both present a VASTLY better internet sovereignty and user/server power dynamic than the current Web 2, but this is far from realizing #Nostr's true potential.
I only say this to get people thinking about the fact that we still have a very serious problem funding relays at scale, and it hasn't been solved, it's mostly been covered up with some very generous grants and *extremely* generous volunteer developers and relay runners. But it WILL have to be addressed or nostr's success will come hand in hand with some hard truths about how we use it and what we think it is.
It won't be unlike the people who thought all #Bitcoin transactions were going to be free forever, settle instantly, and that the whole world could be sovereign with their own UTXOs. That's simply not how it worked, and we had to have a 4 year, vicious, all out civil war within the community when we were finally forced to come to terms with that reality.