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Last time I tried navigating the Nostr ecosystem I found their Twitter-equivalent platform and it was full of people posting about cryptocurrencies and other to

Last time I tried navigating the Nostr ecosystem I found their Twitter-equivalent platform and it was full of people posting about cryptocurrencies and other topics that weren't of particular interest to me. Are there any major figures of interest primarily participating on any Nostr platform? Or is there any kind of uniquely interesting content that is being primarily produced and shared on Nostr?

littlecranky67 1y ago
Nostr doesn't have an "algorithm" that tries to find posts that you engage with. You should follow your own list of people, and then you will see their content. There are some clients trying to be more smart, though. The "algorithm" in any social media is a blessing and a curse. Nostr shifts the responsibility of what to show to the clients.
- TheAceOfHearts 1y ago
  Right, and I'm asking if there any interesting figures primarily using this platform to share interesting content because I don't know of any, and I didn't find any niches that were best served by this platform. In the past, the way that I would typically get to know people online was either through niche topic-specific forums or IRC channels. Then eventually if we got to know each other well enough, we would connect on other platforms. The modern version of this seems to be Discord. These platforms are all topic focused, rather than being user-first. Discoverability is important! And one of the limitations of search or tag based discoverability is that you're limited to finding things which you already know about. But it doesn't help you find new things that you don't know about! This doesn't mean that algorithmic discoverability is the only option, for example: you could find some way to map the user's interest spaces and search for unexplored or undiscovered nodes.
  - littlecranky67 1y ago
    Nostr supports #hashtags just as twitter.
  - digitalbase 1y ago
    Discoverability is a huge challenge in any decentralized social protocol. We've been talking a lot about this problem in nostr which can't be summarised in a quick HN comment but gathered some threads if you're really interested https://asknostr.site/question/note1es989rjaccw82gpp705u462yrngq6z9myu3yns909fkhpp3w5vqscc8fng https://asknostr.site/question/note1es989rjaccw82gpp705u462y... https://asknostr.site/question/note12dp9ewpngxejq8w9s6699k5zcpjy8trv2q9pdrtktun8uq4u0erqqwdqnl https://asknostr.site/question/note12dp9ewpngxejq8w9s6699k5z... https://asknostr.site/question/note1cp5cw366g7q9c2txvtrws0h7qcjc5u07may2le9y5ptpf2hfasgq62asrc https://asknostr.site/question/note1cp5cw366g7q9c2txvtrws0h7... https://asknostr.site/question/note1zqjk556quu6rvyetzvhdv7p3829r2p03jp00t39pfrt8e3cg94dqpp2zq8 https://asknostr.site/question/note1zqjk556quu6rvyetzvhdv7p3... https://asknostr.site/question/note1ss842g38wafwcfexd78gx0scavur8n65unwxptph6gnx0zpl93gsq82xdj https://asknostr.site/question/note1ss842g38wafwcfexd78gx0sc...
Quindecillion 1y ago
It's still pretty niche. Built mostly for and by bitcoiners, but has potential as a new way of doing social media that isn't reliant on major tech companies.
scellus 1y ago
Same here. I like the idea, have tried the social-network side a couple of times, but my kind of content is missing or I can't find it. https://bitchat.free https://bitchat.free now uses nostr for non-mesh contacts somehow, but I see no-one there either.
digitalbase 1y ago
As a 1 year nostr user i can relate to this sentiment. Most conversations today are either about crypto or about (building) nostr. My guess is that the better the network becomes the more that specific content will take a backseat
- oblongdefeat 1y ago
  Same experience here. An overwhelming amount of the content is Bitcoin evangelism, AI slop art, and self-congratulating nostr meta-discussion. All with a heavy-handed libertarian / anarcho-capitalism leaning. Even the #art is 95% Bitcoin and nostr fan art.
sak5sk 1y ago
Network effects are difficult to replicate. You need lots of users to get a few solid consistent "content" creators. You need even more users to get the content that YOU like. So, it just amounts to having more users. Some might say it's impossible to replicate some existing social platform like X, and that may be true - but at the end of the day, you can vote with your attention and can contribute in ways you would like your space to be, so if you like say... log cabin content, then you can create it yourself and start amassing a log cabin enthusiast audience who will then start sharing their passion for log cabins.
enether 1y ago
It's inherently a chicken and egg problem. If HackerNews didn't exist and the Nostr community created it - it'd be filled with the same content. Network effects are everything. The tech can be good but the product may not be - solely because of the network effect. Still - pretty good tech!
pndy 1y ago
Two months ago I visited Primal by accident (which appears to be some Nostr instance) and the first impression I've got it's a platform for promoting crypto because streams were just about bitcoins all around Last year one of users on mastodon I was casually talking to decided to move to Nostr - he claimed in his last posts that some features like pools and voting are locked behind payments there. Can someone shed some light on that? I couldn't find any info if that platform does contain paid features.

littlecranky67 1y ago

Nostr doesn't have an "algorithm" that tries to find posts that you engage with. You should follow your own list of people, and then you will see their content. There are some clients trying to be more smart, though. The "algorithm" in any social media is a blessing and a curse. Nostr shifts the responsibility of what to show to the clients.

TheAceOfHearts 1y ago
Right, and I'm asking if there any interesting figures primarily using this platform to share interesting content because I don't know of any, and I didn't find any niches that were best served by this platform. In the past, the way that I would typically get to know people online was either through niche topic-specific forums or IRC channels. Then eventually if we got to know each other well enough, we would connect on other platforms. The modern version of this seems to be Discord. These platforms are all topic focused, rather than being user-first. Discoverability is important! And one of the limitations of search or tag based discoverability is that you're limited to finding things which you already know about. But it doesn't help you find new things that you don't know about! This doesn't mean that algorithmic discoverability is the only option, for example: you could find some way to map the user's interest spaces and search for unexplored or undiscovered nodes.
- littlecranky67 1y ago
  Nostr supports #hashtags just as twitter.
- digitalbase 1y ago
  Discoverability is a huge challenge in any decentralized social protocol. We've been talking a lot about this problem in nostr which can't be summarised in a quick HN comment but gathered some threads if you're really interested https://asknostr.site/question/note1es989rjaccw82gpp705u462yrngq6z9myu3yns909fkhpp3w5vqscc8fng https://asknostr.site/question/note1es989rjaccw82gpp705u462y... https://asknostr.site/question/note12dp9ewpngxejq8w9s6699k5zcpjy8trv2q9pdrtktun8uq4u0erqqwdqnl https://asknostr.site/question/note12dp9ewpngxejq8w9s6699k5z... https://asknostr.site/question/note1cp5cw366g7q9c2txvtrws0h7qcjc5u07may2le9y5ptpf2hfasgq62asrc https://asknostr.site/question/note1cp5cw366g7q9c2txvtrws0h7... https://asknostr.site/question/note1zqjk556quu6rvyetzvhdv7p3829r2p03jp00t39pfrt8e3cg94dqpp2zq8 https://asknostr.site/question/note1zqjk556quu6rvyetzvhdv7p3... https://asknostr.site/question/note1ss842g38wafwcfexd78gx0scavur8n65unwxptph6gnx0zpl93gsq82xdj https://asknostr.site/question/note1ss842g38wafwcfexd78gx0sc...

Quindecillion 1y ago

It's still pretty niche. Built mostly for and by bitcoiners, but has potential as a new way of doing social media that isn't reliant on major tech companies.

scellus 1y ago

Same here. I like the idea, have tried the social-network side a couple of times, but my kind of content is missing or I can't find it. https://bitchat.free https://bitchat.free now uses nostr for non-mesh contacts somehow, but I see no-one there either.

digitalbase 1y ago

As a 1 year nostr user i can relate to this sentiment. Most conversations today are either about crypto or about (building) nostr. My guess is that the better the network becomes the more that specific content will take a backseat

oblongdefeat 1y ago
Same experience here. An overwhelming amount of the content is Bitcoin evangelism, AI slop art, and self-congratulating nostr meta-discussion. All with a heavy-handed libertarian / anarcho-capitalism leaning. Even the #art is 95% Bitcoin and nostr fan art.

sak5sk 1y ago

Network effects are difficult to replicate. You need lots of users to get a few solid consistent "content" creators. You need even more users to get the content that YOU like. So, it just amounts to having more users. Some might say it's impossible to replicate some existing social platform like X, and that may be true - but at the end of the day, you can vote with your attention and can contribute in ways you would like your space to be, so if you like say... log cabin content, then you can create it yourself and start amassing a log cabin enthusiast audience who will then start sharing their passion for log cabins.

enether 1y ago

It's inherently a chicken and egg problem. If HackerNews didn't exist and the Nostr community created it - it'd be filled with the same content. Network effects are everything. The tech can be good but the product may not be - solely because of the network effect. Still - pretty good tech!

pndy 1y ago

Two months ago I visited Primal by accident (which appears to be some Nostr instance) and the first impression I've got it's a platform for promoting crypto because streams were just about bitcoins all around Last year one of users on mastodon I was casually talking to decided to move to Nostr - he claimed in his last posts that some features like pools and voting are locked behind payments there. Can someone shed some light on that? I couldn't find any info if that platform does contain paid features.