What Nostr features are essential when deciding which client you want to use?
Seeing things I want fast.
Which client offers the best user experience for you?
Without a doubt Damus. Even though there isn't an algo and I still have to sift through the noisy posters that I follow, at least I don't have to wait for everything to load.
Do you switch between multiple clients or are you loyal to one?
I use damus on mobile, snort on desktop, but then I use iris for notifications because notifications are slow/unreliable on snort for some reason.
Do you use Nostr more or less than other platforms like Stacker News and Twitter?
Less but it's mostly because there's no way to outsource signal discovery on nostr yet.
What is on the top of your Nostr feature wishlist?
  1. Algorithms that work in a decentralized way. The nostr community seems to prefer the idea of algorithm providers but imho that's not much different than the way things work on the web (even if today we're all kumbaya and I can view the algo in whatever client I want) ... I don't want a SPOF, a single point of moderation, a single point of censorship, for the algorithm I like ... imho algorithms done through centralized providers make the protocol way less interesting for social use cases, because it will make desirable social experiences centralized which isn't differentiated from "the way things are currently done."
  2. A coherent strategy for scaling.
  3. Better incentive schemes for running relays. All the attention is on clients and they will capture most of the value unless the protocol enables/encourages sharing that value - and relays pay the biggest real world costs. I think a lot about the internet and how IP has been in stasis for 30 years because ISPs have no financial incentive to "upgrade the internet." In a similar vein there aren't incentives to compete with them ... it is centralizing.
  4. Smarter key management. There's likely a middle ground between a single key pair and DIDs that makes the right tradeoffs.
All of that said, I'm still very excited about nostr and everything that people are building. It's fun! It's also the best thing we've got right now. And everyone willing to speak on the matter seems to think none of these things I've listed are concerns/things nostr needs. So perhaps I'm wrong.