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There seems to be an odd assumption, mostly implicit, that people would be using nostr as intensively as the main platforms if nostr were succeeding.
Isn’t the amount of time spent on social media a problem that nostr could be remedying though?
I do make that assumption. It is hard to measure success by how much less a tool is used than some other.
At the least, wouldn't we want to see more new users coming to nostr? They may not be doomscrolling all day like on Twitter or Instagram, but it seems like there should be more if it was succeeding.
Yes, success should mean more people getting a larger share of their value from nostr than they’ve been getting from its alternatives.
That just doesn’t imply that they are using it more.
There’s a more extreme possibility too. It may be that nostr is analogous to nicotine gum/patches. In which case, the value is found mostly in reducing a bad habit.
Thing is, I don't think platforms like Facebook had really dialed in their ability to grab attention and keep it when they first started. Yet, they grew fast. Faster than nostr (or SN).
Maybe they just had something people wanted and that they couldn't get anywhere else. I mean, when Facebook launched, what was it competing against? Myspace? AIM?
Same story for a lot of these rapid growth things (uber, airbnb, bitcoin?). If nostr has fizzled out, it's because it failed to offer something new. It really only had two things: decentralization and zaps. And maybe composability. Three things. It had three things...
Anyhow, it seems that nostr isn't offering those things in a way that people find compelling, or people don't want those things.
If zaps could connect easily and smoothly to a normie's bank account, I think it's possible that we would have seen the crazy kind of growth that seems to be the only sign of life for social networks.