### Observations from 50 days on Nostr as an Outsider
Extremely Long Note Alert
*As an outsider* cos don't have a NIP-05 or Lightning wallet. So,technically I've got no credible identity on Nostr. I could possibly be a bot ⁉️ Moreover, I'm not even a Bitcoin noob let alone maxi.
I was surprised that aesthetics coalesced quickly on Nostr, given that it's a protocol 👀
Color: Purple
Mascot: Ostrich (specifically a purple nostrich)
Ethos: punk, bitcoin maxi, leaning libertarian?
Pronounciation: Undecided 😅
**Nostr moves fast**
I joined on 4Feb, when Amethyst was mainly text-focused & the global feed seemed exclusively spam.
Between then & now,
- Global became spam-minimal, thanks to many relay operators & people shifting to paid relays
- Reports & client-side filtering
- Auto-translate (even spam is more understandable now!)
- Quote notes, deletion of notes/reactions
- Embedded media preview (photos, videos, YT)
- **Zaps**
- Badges
- Searches & ability to follow hashtags
- Markdown
- Bookmarks
I'm sure it was a similar pace of changes in other clients too, with features added/changed quickly. Moreover, the ecosystem has grown wider to encompass [monitoring relays][E1], for [stats][E2], [zap metrics][E3], [audio spaces][E4], [Lightning][E14] [wallets][E16] [supporting zaps][E17], [signers][E18], [bounties][E5], [searches][E6], [directory][E7], [media][E8] [upload][E9], [longform][E10] [posts][E11], [IFTTT][E12], [curated lists][E13], [etc][E15] 🤯
**Global Feed**
About mid-Feb relay feeds (including some public relays) became cleaner allowing me to scroll through 60-90mins everyday. And
- After English, most posts are in Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese & French(on the rise)
- Japanese Nostr is it's own microcosm, with more food pics, slice-of-life posts & micro-apps like for [channels discovery][SP1], [recommendation][SP2], [Wayback machine][SP3]
- Spam is still there, but it's about 2-3% of posts maybe & there's variety: shopping discount spam, spam in Chinese something about ChatGPT🤔, Lightning invoice spam, [meta-spam][SP4]. No shower girl anymore thankfully!
- Quite a few bots: bitcoin-block ones & a water-bot. Bots for games of chance, cowdle & rock-paper-scissors (now defunct?)
- Posts from Mostr bridge tend to be risque or super-niche like Nature papers on marine biology/astrophysics types
- Approx 80% posts are about Bitcoin, Nostr & Bitcoin memes (duh!!), though gradually seeing more pet/bird/garden pics, music recs, film recs (saw a couple of John Wick4 recs just today), even a [recipe post][SP6] using Markdown.
**What I love(d) here**
1. The community - there's a level of joviality & verve with an upbeat vibe. When I have a query, there's atleast 1 person who helps me out 🙏 Till now, it's been warm & welcoming to me.
2. Devs building in real time getting feedback on Nostr itself. I've never experienced this before & it feels so exciting to see that even among devs it seems to be a very collaborative process. Though at times I wonder how much feedback is too much feedback, to avoid an [implosion like Hic Et Nunc in Nov-2021][L1]
3. How Nostr notes seems persistent & ephemeral at the same time. As there's no guarantee of deletion, there's a sense of once written, can't be undone. But, it's quite arduous to search for old notes + there's no specific data retention spec. Notes are in a potential existential limbo in time, which to me, feels very liberating.
4. Zaps. Even as someone who's not used them, I can see they're a paradigm shift & unlock so many opportunities for value creation. And it seems to be a genuinely fun experience 😅
**What I dislike(d) here**
Lack of a discovery mechanism - at the moment it's tough to find notes/people basis interest. Coupled with the skew towards Bitcoin notes in global (& otherwise) this is a dampener. Hopefully it will get better.
Sometimes global feed feels like a Bitcoin evangelical forum. I get the Bitcoin is a game-changing innovation, but the schadenfreude for people using fiat/other cryptocurrencies is jarring. The juxtaposition of gloating at bank failures next to "Stay Humble, Stack Sats" seems ironic. I'm afraid that in the miasma of being right, genuine concerns (from whomever it may be, from their pov) will be ridiculed. I hope it's okay to use (try) Nostr without being fully sold on The Bitcoin Standard? 🤔 While I've not faced personal hostility, seeing 1 in every 15-20 posts shitting on people is not encouraging.
**Things that confuse(d) me**
1. Why plebs?The notion of pleb here is far removed from plebian IRL (Someone helpfully clarified this)
2. Took a long time to work out that shaka means 🤙
3. Orange/purple-pilling?? What do they mean?
4. Does the icon at the top-center of Amethyst do anything? (Looks way better in dark mode 😈)
**Personal Rants**
I'm quite boring & have strong opinions on very few topics. So, when I started using Nostr, I only wanted to lurk around; didn't expect much interaction & that's pretty much what happened. But whatever interaction I had, it was very warm, cheerful & genuine; good people to be around! Thank you all (especially if you're reading till here!) so much for that 😊
It also made me realise that I don't miss Twitter, except for some awesome generative art on TL.
I feel like I'm breaking an implicit contract here, by not zapping (i.e. participating in the value-for-value ethos). So it's probably time for me to sign out & take a break.
Thanks to Vitor; to @someone & @scsibug (hope relay spam-filtering is not taking up too much time) 🙏🙏
I had a fun time here ✌️✌️
---
[E1]:https://nostr.watch/relays/find
[E2]:https://stats.nostr.band/
[E3]:https://zaplife.lol/
[E4]:https://nostrnests.com/
[E5]:https://nostrbounties.com/
[E6]:https://nostrview.com/
[E7]:https://nostr.directory/
[E8]:http://nostr.build/
[E9]:https://nostrimg.com/
[E10]:https://habla.news/ [E11]:https://blogstack.io/
[E12]:https://nostrit.com/
[E13]:https://nosli.vercel.app/
[E15]:https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr
[E14]:https://getalby.com/
[E16]: t.me/LightningTipBot
[E17]:https://www.walletofsatoshi.com/
[E18]:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nos2x/kpgefcfmnafjgpblomihpgmejjdanjjp
[SP1]: https://garnet.nostrian.net/channels/
[SP2]:https://snort.social/p/npub126yeu6j4c9rhrfz63r9ep2qzvgaquvs3ag2ywpt79jv8z7tvu47qkx6r3n (Recommendation)
[SP3]:https://nosaray.vercel.app/
[SP4]:https://snort.social/e/note1pc7x00semfnnxmfflqx7t9tplajdgc4x6s3kq4v94djqkq5k2nhqu8sng0
[SP6]:https://snort.social/p/npub1fwfsmekmd2uw4ve98fqk9gff6mvhh70wme90vvgafampwqe8v8aqkr2200 (Recipe profile)
[L1]:https://decrypt.co/86020/tezos-nft-marketplace-hic-et-nunc-discontinued
In some ways, we're getting back to the 90s and the early days of the Internet: building protocols that are open and enabling a lot of innovation on top of it.
For example, everyone knows error 404 but 402 was there also (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402).
Now, the payments have materialised and are as easy as visiting someone's profile on nostr. It's called zapping or public tips but it can be used for more than tips.
Another aspect of the early Internet was the openness to innovation. Everybody could contribute, and the spirit of building, discovery and awe was there. It was a new frontier where a lot of opportunities were possible before the centralisation and silos.
A third aspect is more generic but you have a community feel on nostr. And, it's a global village at the moment that is respectful, inspiring and supportive.
The fourth one is related to the underlying principles of liberty and openness that are pretty much in question in every part of the world.
Johan Norberg's book Open: The Story of Human Progress is a wonderful explainer of this phase and its importance. A few quotes from my review:
"There are periods in history where different cultures with different religions, ethnicities and locations had rule of law, rapid economic growth and scientific progress. These upturns were often sudden, unexpected and very expansive with population and income growth...
All of them have commonalities that are the basic message of the book: people were open to new and different ideas, innovations, cultures, habits, foreigners, technologies, business models and more importantly to the uncertainty that opening up to something different and strange bring."
https://www.petrikajander.com/open-the-story-of-human-progress/
A lot of the frontiers are closed at this point. Space travel is not accessible yet. Metaverse has not really taken off. Invasive wars are a reality now that has set us back almost 100 years. Money printing and all the rest of the troubles in the economies are also making things look grim.
nostr and AI are examples of new frontiers that are exciting, full of opportunities and are shaping our future in very unpredictable ways.
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