Constant

Writing a book about Nostr

Bella verborum inevitabilia;
Dominatio per rhetoricam.

Ceterum censeo NIP-3b omnibus esse utendum

Public Key

npub1t6jxfqz9hv0lygn9thwndekuahwyxkgvycyscjrtauuw73gd5k7sqvksrw

NIP-57 Address

constant@lnbits.beyourownbank.nl

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9afryspzmk8ljyfj4mhfkumwwmhzrtyxzvzgvfp477w80g5x6t0gpydmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuct60fsk6mewdejhgtmxd35kuapdwashyer9dcq35amnwvaz7tmwdaehgun9d3shjtnev4nksun09e3k7mg0c3t4w

Publishing to

nostr.azzamo.net/flint-warden

nostrelay.yeghro.com

relay.primal.net

Author Public Key

npub1t6jxfqz9hv0lygn9thwndekuahwyxkgvycyscjrtauuw73gd5k7sqvksrw

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Last Notes

2026-09-08 23:38:15

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You can always link/reference things manually by using "nostr:[insert npub/nprofile/nevent/naddr/etc]"
Thats how simple Nostr is.
(And yes a decent client does this for you, but knowing how to do it yourself does not hurt)

2026-09-08 19:11:39

Het is shit weer... nu ik heb zin in chocolade melk....
NAAR DE SUPERMARKT!

2026-09-08 18:59:45

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SO DOES HIS MOM!

2026-09-08 11:11:32

I still stand by this, but perhaps some elaboration is in order.
#nevent1q…xvyt
In essence my point here is that, yes, the potential for ''catastrophe'' is there, and that ultimately the only thing you can do in such a situation is ''cry''. Catastrophe meaning that something terrible happens that can't be put back into its former order, it can't be ''fixed'' as such, your only option is to live with the consequences and figure out a way forward.
There are 3 parts to this key-loss thing:
What are the odds of it happening?
What are the consequences if it happens?
How do you move forward when it happens?
We have ways and means to reduce the odds of it happening, we can think of ways to ease the path in moving forward. But my "cry" remark is in relation to the fact that we can't, i repeat, can not, take away the consequences of lost (or worse, stolen) keys as such. It sucks, it just sucks, as do many things in life (chiefly its ending).
When people "demand" key-rotation, i sense that they demand ''we'' take away this potential for catastrophe, and i am not going to give 1 inch of leeway to that sentiment. We can discuss key management, we can discuss things like social recovery, but I have no time or patience for people that all the sudden have selective amnesia towards all the elements where those catastrophic risks exist in the things they use today, and all the sudden have made up that when it comes to Nostr it is a deal-breaker.
To be clear, this is also why i take the effort to point out that even though Nostr allows your to fight the risk of some third party Soviet-style removing your identity and content from history, it hands you back all the ways to shoot yourself in the foot instead.
There are a bunch of reasons why the latter is to be preferred over the former, one of them being that in the first scenario its a select few people holding that fate of billions of users in their hands; a level of power and responsibility that is a far more unhealthy architecture than one where from time to time small tragedies occur in the margin.
My feeling the only reason this is even a point of discussion is because we are honest when introducing this Nostr notion to people, whereas they probably never consciously considered all these things when signing up for Facebook at the time; if they would have, we probably would not have been in this platform mess to begin with

2026-09-07 21:15:47

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you know what definitely is pointless? Being concerned with the woes of low agency people in relation to a new open protocol that is rebuilding the entire web from the ground up.

2026-09-07 20:17:23

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thats not how that works.
First you need an organization to build this stuff themselves;
Then you need other organizations that start using that stuff because it is good enough;
Then at some point you get to an amount of organizations that someone figures it starts to make sense to offer things as a service which amps up the quality and allows for a large number of organization to start adopting things.
You can't just go:
Someone go build stuff and offer it as a service, and then suffer crickets for eternity

2026-09-07 18:11:37

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they are better off building it themself and actually use it, and keep it alive and then other organizations can start using it as well etc.
Otherwise some dev makes this stuff, and its all nice and fancy, but nobody gives a shit and it goes straight into the dust bin, and then 5 minutes later some organization will complain the software is not there, eventhough we have an entire graveyard full of stuff they could be using.

2026-09-07 16:21:55

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going that route its more straightforward to have a private relay accept employee submissions that are then resigned and published by the ''main'' keypair (which is done by another employee that has a bunker link to do this). Where the "main" key is controlled by a FROST setup among a group which constitute the owners of the organization.
See how all these things can just be stacked in order to fit the usecase and level of delegation/trust?

2026-09-07 15:50:45

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cause there is non and people should move on. The more high profile you are, the easier social migration becomes. Timestamp your stuff on a structural basis so you can reference back to your post history.
For some reason people got it into their heads that they should demand this impossible requirement, otherwise the thing is not good enough....meanwhile the potential of catastrophy exist in all sorts of ways in all sorts of systems and things they use.
If for some reason you still want to believe, you can look at the work over at @npub16xn…6z6l

2026-09-07 15:40:18

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then give those employees a bunker link....

2026-09-07 14:41:27

Why are people communicating via op_return? Maybe we should create a communication protocol based on bitcoin keypairs with servers that index based on pubkeys.

2026-09-06 05:27:54

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What brought you to Nostr in the first place? How did you hear about it?

2026-09-06 05:24:44

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Prophets are respected everywhere except in their own hometown and by their relatives and their family.

2026-09-06 00:18:39

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Do you want a paasei or no?

2026-09-06 00:17:37

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Its universal for producing utter confusion, with the desired result all the same

2026-09-05 23:57:28

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Livable perhaps, but pretty fake n gay.

2026-09-05 23:56:22

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Or as say:
1 ei is geen ei;
2 ei is een half ei.

2026-09-05 23:55:03

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Sir obviously you should have had an ups for your secondary ups which backs up your ups. It is known #upsception

2026-09-05 23:51:02

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Fliberdiflaberdifloepfloep

2026-09-05 23:49:56

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What way are LLMs talking tough?

2026-09-05 23:49:10

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Its not a matter of ought/should. If you are germanic (or japanse of that matter) it will, otherwise it probably won't.

2026-09-05 16:19:39

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Ooh ooh aah aah

2026-09-05 16:18:55

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@nprofile…twc2 do you guys use any default blossom servers? Otherwise il set them up

2026-09-05 10:05:21

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Where are you based? Perhaps you can manage to go to bitfest in manchester? Last year there were plenty of hardware people demo'ing and tinkering. You'd fit right in!

2026-09-05 09:50:12

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Maybe the videos you try to upload are too large for a free server? What size are the files?

2026-09-05 09:47:18

Will be a guest on their show soon! It was @nprofile…cy6q that listened to their podcast and figured Nostr would be a good topic for them. He emailed them and asked if they would have me on.
So another reminder to all: if you know a (non-bitcoin) podcast that is perhaps open to discuss Nostr, contact them and suggest having me on: and i am your circus monkey.
My email is info@techno-ethica.com
#nevent1q…p0sc

2026-09-05 06:19:48

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Necroclankcy

2026-09-05 06:17:59

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The price is an endless wrestling match trying to get to not be retarded.
You are right to push back on that, and it is even more significant than you innitially might think for your loadbaring mom blablablabla
Stfu robot

2026-09-05 05:35:04

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That you'd be stupid enough to put on the spices first and then rub your stick of butter on the corn

2026-09-04 21:47:21

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Broodwar, obviously

2026-09-04 11:08:47

pro-tip if you are vibecoding Nostr crap.
Use: https://pkg.go.dev/fiatjaf.com/nostr
Its @npub180c…h6w6 's carefully handcrafted Nostr stuff so your crappy app does outbox and whatever correctly.

2026-09-04 10:19:11

Why is https://favillakey.io/ and @npub1mnf…2twd
not getting a shit ton of attention? I want more Nostr Hardware signers🧐
Bitcoin and Nostr might bite eachother when designing for such a product though, because i suspect a Nostr signer needs a lot more capacity and smarts, as well inherrently more attack surface all of which that would not be required for a bitcoin signer. But i am curiuous what Josh has to say about the matter.

2026-09-04 09:57:48

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I am going away for a bit, so will be giving some super mega turbo ultra prompt the robot can have fun with while i am away.

2026-09-04 09:55:34

I want to use the fancy Fable 5.1 for what i am actually working on, and thats already maxxed out. So what to do with those remaining tokens👀
#nevent1q…k8fw

2026-09-04 09:51:17

I am playing the Idle StarFighter game and I am 12m into my first run, 792 rings flown, a best chain of 53, 19,737 scrap earned. I have installed AFTERBURNER and AUTOPILOT.
A wireframe idle game that runs entirely from Nostr and Blossom — no web host, no server, no account.
https://npub1kemgxdffeejmk0xf3ja7lhmxucp4cqzzx4jcvrv4l3ucua3j40gsfgteus.nsite.lol

2026-09-03 20:40:48

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good

2026-09-03 18:22:16

You are on Nostr to be made aware of Waifu Kirsten Dunst flashing an upskirt
https://cdn.azzamo.media/40139fbeecb9dad8b4dcfdc1d19d3a51d085a6417e7d00b28fd4c494a82a7c2e.mp4

2026-09-03 18:17:01

You are on Nostr to be made aware of Waifu Kirsten Dunst flashing an upskirt
https://youtu.be/yP7Fp5zdKEA

2026-09-03 18:03:49

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But like i said, the spec/documentation their robots wrote paint a far better picture. And maybe things have changed in the meantime, i dont know

2026-09-03 17:39:51

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they half-assed the NIP29 and it is not actually interoperable and its a basterdization of the Nostr idea in general.

2026-09-03 17:26:00

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you should follow @npub1kk0…6xq2

2026-09-03 17:23:56

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"The coolest part is it’s completely Nostr underneath!!!"
Sort of, kinda, atleast in intent according to the documents.
I don't want to be a debby downer or anything but they could do a far better job being a Nostr client if:
A: were inclined to do so, and did not have this stupid 'Nostr will fade into the background' attidude, which is a terrible notion.
B: were actually capable irt Nostr, and bothered to interact with those that are.

2026-09-03 14:39:12

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Ah, the age old primal question.

2026-09-03 14:35:58

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We only pay for the privilege to spend their money :)

2026-09-03 02:23:32

ooof it seems someone is trying to get primal off my relay list with a bit of spam.

2026-09-03 01:43:08

you try to optimize for tokens;
I just cruise on the most fancy model on max settings hitting my budget in 1 prompt.
We are not the same

2026-09-02 22:26:39

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kowtowing to such phantoms is not going to help anything. Those same people irrationally screech because Dorsey is somehow involved.

2026-09-02 15:27:42

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Look at this weird little guy banning porn.

2026-09-02 15:24:19

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It was not New York at the time, but Nieuw Amsterdam. Became New York a bit later.

2026-09-02 13:13:41

Going through the various forms of chatter and accompanying narratives surrounding DiVine.
The ''re-introduction'' of Vine is begging the question as to why it is at all relevant;
the answer to that question mostly comes down to this ''no-AI'' thing;
the ''no-AI'' thing subsequently comes across as mostly a gimmick DiVine desperately clings onto in search of relevancy;
If the Nostr aspect is even alluded to, it is this quick afterthought;
You'd be lucky if Nostr itself even gets mentioned;
it ties it to DiVine being "open-source" as a mostly hollow meaningless phrase;
the discussion around that part is an absolute confused clusterfuck where nobody has any actual idea of what on earth is going on.
Now I am not blind to the efforts the team behind DiVine are taking in order to make their users "Nostr-aware", but...
At the same time "Nostr" is avoided like the plague in public communication.
You are robbing people of the pointer to both start understanding and tie-in for their understanding of a new paradigm.
JUST.SAY.THE.WORD.
Nostr

2026-09-02 07:02:06

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Maybe that the WIC thing on top of the stond is older and from that period, unclear to me

2026-09-02 06:55:39

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Its from 1926, so 100 years old. For a big stone that is not that old no?

2026-09-02 00:02:39

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Those would not be people though, they would be more like animals

2026-09-01 23:58:20

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No, you implied lightning does not have a pow chain, it does, its called Bitcoin

2026-09-01 23:55:04

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Lightning has this PoW chain called Bitcoin

2026-09-01 21:20:17

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I bet its a blast

2026-09-01 20:56:00

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So? Do they read your Nostr-post-announcement-thingies? I don't want to leave my client by clicking on a weblink sir.

2026-09-01 18:16:37

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Why link a substack though 🧐

2026-08-31 22:50:51

🤣😂🤣
#nevent1q…uac5

2026-08-31 21:38:44

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inb4 UTXO is the spammer all along in order to drive people away from other clients towards wisp

2026-08-31 17:35:07

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Ik had vroeger echt een hekel aan boeken schillen

2026-08-31 14:26:29

The 2025 FOSDEM video now has over 30k views.
About 8.4% watched the entire presentation, little over 2000 people.
According to youtube, 100% is in the agegroup 35-44 and 100% is male.
https://cdn.azzamo.media/8a6b7b8c13540aa7782951864b849c7cfa3548503a758a5de33aead33c4ca808.png
https://cdn.azzamo.media/2c9170884acece251ae423e0d71ce3a0b8a738403e5770dcc47cf5110bf5c726.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbt3jL1Ms0w

2026-08-31 08:50:16

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Well everyone manning the stand itself is still active😅

2026-08-31 01:06:59

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What do we want!? Bleep!
When do we want it!? Bloop!

2026-08-30 15:23:03

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Does nostr build support nsites other than that i can throw the stuff on the blossom server? But providing a nice url as well as an extension of the url of the blossom server name you can claim perhaps?

2026-08-30 14:20:04

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5%....living on the edge huh? How daring

2026-08-30 09:34:06

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All good points, as well as from Nate as this one.
I would add two things here, perhaps more explicitly in what i dont know what to call but call 'protocol-independence' which is ultimately just permissionlessness: you dont have any protocol dependencies; someone changing something elsewhere cant rugpull your system, at worst someone can come and mess with the event-kinds you are using screwing up your clients, but thats ultimately a matter of defensive programming, which is a required to do inside Nostr anyway.
Nip01 is not going to change, and that is ultimately all there is, you can do whatever inside of those simple rules, and don't have to content with this entire stack that might shift from underneath you; there is ultimately no coordination needed within Nostr, you can just do things.
Second remark is on the topic of key managment and i really want to push back on the idea that this is some sort of show-stopper. I dont think that is the case at all. The 'infrastructure' to onboard people with care and attention is right there; you just need to come up with a sensible viable user flow, and then do the grind work of training the trainers, the trainers training the teachers, parents, bureacrats, and then the teachers training the children.
I am not saying it is non-trivial, but this is not something we are not doing all the time or have been doing throughout time...hello thats the entire point of schools to begin with, to teach children how to read, write, calculate....these are all potocols we onboard children onto, and are far more extensive than key management.
So part of the conversation is whether 'germany' recognizes that part of operating within society in the 21th century is being able to handle keys, and i don't think this is a hard argument to make, especially in light of their both their 'Ask' and 'ambition' with this whole thing to begin with, and our proposed answer; which to a large extend is: if you are serious about digital sovereignty, and changing the paradigm, this key stuff is right there at the center of it.
For the most part, all the reasons we argue these other protocols ultimately are not a REAL improvement on the situation, is because they never dared to take the step of putting keys at the center and in the hands of the user.
These are all fascinating discussions, that i would love to have with these people....so if you manage to open that door, i am here to walk through it with you at any moment.

2026-08-29 19:57:34

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Just leave the two, there is no point in 5 media servers.

2026-08-29 19:51:12

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Well @nprofile…kqvg , don't try to store private data that you want to keep secret from the rest of the world on this server, and you should be good to go.

2026-08-29 19:51:12

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Well @nprofile…kqvg , don't try to store private data that you want to keep secret from the rest of the world on this server, and you should be good to go.

2026-08-29 19:27:50

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No, she got a nostrbuild account....

2026-08-29 16:39:00

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oh, that might be the issue. Not sure if Nostr build accepts encrypted files regardless, but yes, you are using your paid server now. :)

2026-08-29 16:25:01

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hmmm, maybe it was a DM quirk specifically. Is everything else working now?

2026-08-29 15:47:53

@nprofile…pt5w @nprofile…9ekx
Ive helped @nprofile…kqvg setting up a paid relay and blossomserver, but now media uploads are buggy throwing all sorts of errors and i am not sure at what side the issue is.
Claire will explain to the best of her abilites what is going wrong below

2026-08-29 10:02:37

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It is an excellent idea; i think sort of exists with things like start9 and can't recall the name of that other one.
Aside from a relay, it can run a client that can take its sweet time indexing and running WoT analyses, crawling the network to find posts and things you might find interesting. It can then put those things in seperate relay-feeds that you browse.
Plenty of opportunities.
In the early years of lightning, a dutch bitcoin podcaster @npub17h7…sd76 put up a bunch of tutorials setting up a node and it resulted spurred a movement with a lot of offshoots in a bunch of directions.
One of those offshoots was a niche-of-a-niche lighting podcast called Connect the World with @npub1vvq…v3s8 and @npub1ywc…w6nr . I was one of their early guests and so was @npub180c…h6w6 who did not show his face but instead showed a professional game of Starcraft. As an avid Broodwar enjoyer myself i was intrigued. That recording was terrible because fiatjaf mumbles in a silly accent, was sitting infront of an open window next to a busy street and above all had a terrible microphone.
The reason Fiatjaf was on the podcast was because at the time he was an active lightning developer, behind a telegrambot called LNtxbot used for exchanging btc inside telegram. I used his bot to give him the money required to buy a better mic. He did, and eventually we ended up recording a podcast for a year and he convinced me of Nostr and now we are here, including you :).
Point being sometimes it is not worth pondering the the first order viability of a thing too much, because the second and third order effects are far more important anyway.
https://cdn.azzamo.media/84f42a6c80356a75a625e66f81aaad24f652f87673a27234f32e2623d08b69f6.mp4

2026-08-29 08:20:50

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I guess you could design it in bursts; so a quick onboarding, and then lets say after a week, the app tells you about this 'new' feature.
Anyway, you get the point of it all.

2026-08-29 05:35:07

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Make a post;
Follow 5 people;
Change your bio;
Upload a picture;
Add anonther blossom server;
Add a relay;
Open a relay feed;
Etc.

2026-08-29 05:22:08

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Its been more than a year ago i think i tried to vibecode something like that, but as with any such thing it sucked and would have taken more time and dedication to get it right.
But the app as such already exsists, so perhaps building this into/on top of amethyst is a lot easier

2026-08-29 05:19:59

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Perhaps do it like a mobile-game. Onboard the user onto Nostr as if its an adventure with unlocks when you do certain actions/'quests'.
Ofcourse you should be able to go into the settings and 'unlock' everything at any time, thats not the point, the point is that people need to be fed the things in bite size chunks to allow mental framing of what is going on.
People play the most absurd complex civ games, but they are always eased into it

2026-08-28 16:36:16

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Its not (just) the regulation thing, but things are shifting and institutions and alike are looking for alternatives. These things move slow, so if they make decissions in directions that are not Nostr, it will be a while before we get the chance to convince them again, if ever.

2026-08-28 15:09:36

I do think we need Nostr lobby organizations, and i am more than willing to provide material for anyone who wants to take up such things. But as for the extend you want me to be a lobbyist, my preferred method is the one described and demonstrated below.
#nevent1q…qjge

2026-08-28 14:30:38

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#nevent1q…qjge

2026-08-28 14:28:47

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yeah im with ya, i was just venting hahahahaha

2026-08-28 12:14:09

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So i will probably ponder this stuff a couple of times, but let me give you what popped up into my head innitially.
I feel we should really just go the route of show don't tell in a way...assuming you can actually get the attention of actual people (as opposed to some formal process and comittee whatever....i understand if that is part of the process at some point, but shit really needs to "land" first with atleast some of the indviduals involved).
But that said.
What do they want? These people don't know anything, they don't know what they want,all they are capable off is paroting these phrases and words, that in their heads don't mean anything concrete. "Open protocols'' etc etc. its all meaningless.
Il tell you what they want:
They want a system where anyone can build their own app (the want to) and they work interchangeably, that connects with any ''back-end/server'' interchangeably. They don't want vendor lock-in, on any level. That is what they want.
And this is what is kinda frustrating about all of this, because it is so utterly damned fucking trivial from a Nostr perspective. Its like describing the utility of a helicopter to a person who just can't wrap their head around the concept.
We want to go over there: Yeah thats fine, we just fly there.
But we also want to go up that mountain: yeah....thats fine....we just fly there.
Well but we also need to go to that island over there: YEAH THATS FINE, WE JUST FLY THERE FFS.
Just give your list of usecases, and people can make an app, or a collection of apps.
And yes, that blind kid can have his own app for blind people. And yes the kid without hands can have his app that he can operate with the stick that he controlls with his tongue. And yes all these things can just be, and nobody has to coordinate any of this, other than the set of NIPs we agree on what this ''public school infrastructue'' is going to be, and maybe some certification body that gives a stamp of approval after some sanity check.
They will probably just get into a more confused state going:
What do you mean we don't need a EU-public-tender process for a gazillion million euro's that will take ages and results in Capgemini or whatever building some crappy monolithic shit app/system that conforms to our million item requirement list and is ''opensource and build on an open standard''.

2026-08-28 06:26:48

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Well, this one is particularly timezone suspicious.

2026-08-27 22:40:02

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If you reference a Nostr post, you are better off using the Nostr native way of doing so, which is ''nostr:" followed by the thing you are referencing. In this case you reference a regular event, which is this ''nevent1...etc'' string.
What you posted now is a weblink, which opens people's browser, goes to a website (in this case primal.net) and then opens that event there, whereas you can just reference it directly via the method above (you probably don't have to do it manually, but you just selected the ''wrong'' option), resulting in:
#nevent1q…06es

2026-08-27 16:27:45

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Desktop: jumble
Mobile: ....yes

2026-08-27 16:21:12

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https://gitgrasp.com/

2026-08-27 04:35:00

Perhaps we need more drawn out fist fights with people in alleys to get them to use Nostr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhr3TzEknzY

2026-08-27 04:31:10

This list of things are not so much app features, as they are means to give you perspective on this new web we are building. Please read and ponder them as such...
And then go have a look and use it for they are a bunch of cool app features :P
#nevent1q…04u9

2026-08-26 18:24:27

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Cool me crazy but its moments like these i can't help to think Nostr is fucking awesome

2026-08-25 23:20:37

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@npub1ey6…szvp

2026-08-25 22:51:22

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I don't care for either, im just posting.

2026-08-25 22:50:21

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appealing to fashion is for faggots. Besides, this bullshit always circles back, so if you insist, percieve me as ahead of the curve.

2026-08-25 18:34:49

Before i go hard on my criticism on something, and will stamp my size 46(EUR) feet demanding answers, I will task my robot to see if actually using Nostr produces sufficient results.
Not sure if it will be done this evening, and I have two days of fiat digging ahead of me, so it might take a while.
Yes, this is vagueposting an announcement of an announcement.

2026-08-25 18:25:23

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cargo pants master race

2026-08-25 10:24:53

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Just let everyone set up their own treehouse, thats the whole point.
Dont be too concerned with people you ultimately don't care about, if they care for you.

2026-08-25 08:32:50

Evert 'sales' pitch always seeks to allign its narrative to the perception of its audience. It highlights particular virtues and benefits that will stike chord.
This does not fully inform the would be user, it will omit and warp things in order to fit the box inside the mind.
We see this in many things, and Bitcoin has plenty of examples that is some cases manifested themselves eventually in forks. The expectations that were cultivated in order to get them excited in the first place, were ultimately missalligned with reality leading towards some breaking point. I.e.
"This was not what i signed up for"
With Nostr, we see the same, and although to some extend this stuff is inevitable, if not just for the irrationality of some people, on certain things it can be mostly avoided by better framing...i hope.
@npub1yzv…rf8q introduced what they call 'premium' content. Its a paywall. It uses NIP63, and leverages relays to enforce who can read what.
All in all its a simple enough system:
You as a publisher make a list of the who, in relation to the what, hand that list to the relay that has those publications, and rely on them enforcing that list.
You trust the middleman, oh the humanity! A TRUSTED MIDDLEMAN!? Grab the pitchforks.
In Bitcoin you have two types of people, those that say it has no middlemen and are idiots or lazy in their wording, and those that say it has no trusted middlemen and are correct.
But you still rely on the miners, and the whole game is that you have to bribe them to the point of including your transaction. Decentralization among this miner class is what gives you the opportunity to find a miner (eventually) that is willing to be bribed outside of any other reasons they dislike you or your transaction that they can't be bribed.
The transaction itself is tamperproof and the rule enforcment is done by every individual participant such that you don't have to trust the miner in processing your transaction correctly.
In Nostr, your publications are tamperproof, you don't have to trust the relay it will publish some altered publication, verification happens at the receiver.
Thats is, that the trust minimization, and it allows you flexibility in what relays you use. But just as with Bitcoin you still need a miner to perform the action, you still trust the relay to perform its action. If it doesn't, or does so incorrectly, you can go elsewhere.
What are these actions a relay performs, what do you entrust it to do? Well in a general sense, relays do three things:
They receive publications;
They store publications;
They hand out publications or request.
That is their task, that is what they are responsible for, and as a result is what they have power and controll over, and therefor you are left trusting them in those regards.
Trusting a relay to 'function' if that function is simply accepting anything you give it to it, storing it to to the end of time, and handing it out everytime it is requested, does not change the fact you trusted it in the first place, regardles if that 'function' changes.
We have 'protected events', where we expect relays not to accept publications unless they are offered by the original creator. Which tweaks things on the receive side.
We have 'delete requests', where we expect relays to remove a publication when asked to do so by the original creator. Which tweaks things on the store side of things.
And now, we have 'premium' content, where we expect relays to selectively hand out publications depending on what the original creator stated on who is allowed to receive them. Which tweaks the handing out side of the story.
Can relays betray that trust? Yes, ofcourse, sure they can. And the consequences differ depending on what the function was in the first place. Be that censorship, piracy in one form or another.
Unfortunate when that happens, but you can dry your tears and move to another relay in the hopes your trust won't be violated again.
Or you do not want to trust someone else to begin with, thats ok, you can run your own relay.
To all the sad cypherpunk panda's out there, that somehow got it into their minds that things worked differently, and expected to have found some hardcore p2p cryptogrpahic cyber hornets thing...please note that in the current paradigm the entire world population is stuck with, they have to trust every dimension, including their identity and the integrity of their publications to the same third party, without a viable alternative. Lets count our wins here.
Nostr as a protocol has no pretence. It promosises barely anything, it hands you no guarantees other than tamperproof publications (as long as the cryptography holds). And frankly, thats enough, for the most part because any guarentees made by other systems are ultimately fake/lies anyway.
So embrace the practical, and lets continue working on this open social protocol with a chance of working.
Nostr.
Ps: yeah yeah i know, these things should be articles, but i am just sitting infront of my front door in the morning sun writitng this crap on my phone, so maybe il take the effort of turning them into proper articles later.

2026-08-25 06:27:27

Implying anyone ever talks about Schnorr, JSON and websockets to anyone ever.
#nevent1q…caf5

2026-08-24 21:01:39

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As a matter of fact, there are more of us