I haven't been on Nostr for a year yet but I use it less than I did at the start. My issues with Nostr are nothing technical. It is good enough. My issue is the value of spending my time there. It has far to much in common with Twitter for me. The signal to noise ratio is not nearly what I want it to be. A ton of low quality content. Very little real intellectually stimulating engagement.
I've also been writing longer form content on Nostr (re-posts from SN) and get virtually zero traction. I think the problem isn't really Nostr as much as it is what I want to get out of it. Or put another way, I have little desire to invest energy in the Twitter style content that dominates Nostr.
Social media to me for the most part is a depressing picture of our society. Even the sliver of it called bitcoiners. A lot of fluff. Short attention spans. Little substance.
Also could be that I'm getting old and grumpy. You asked though.
On the positive side I am bullish for the ideas and protocol of Nostr. I think there is a need for this type of tech/network/protocol. I can see many uses for it beyond a Twitter clone.
fair enough, i do see your point about how it’s too close to the experience one gets on twitter.
i hope nostr starts to establish new reasons for people to participate that are simply not possible on twitter, i’m not sure zapping on its own is enough.
Zapping is a really cool feature and I think it could lead to many other use cases. I mean, I think for people that like Twitter Nostr is probably better in many ways. But it doesn't yet have the network reach.
I was pretty early to Twitter and loved it for the first 5 or so years. As it grew however it became different and lost something for me.
Sadly much less. The clients have gotten better and I really like the idea of the protocol but interaction, engagement, and zaps have all but dried up. Whenever I post anything now I feel like I’m just throwing my note into the void to be forgotten. The first 4-6 months were great though. Seems like things went downhill when Apple banned zapping notes and then got even worse when Wallet of Satoshi pulled out of the US.
Some of it might just be me. A Twitter style social media never really appealed to me. Reddit (now SN) is more my style.
Some of it might just be me. A Twitter style social media never really appealed to me. Reddit (now SN) is more my style.
This is why I'm so disinterested in nostr as a Twitter clone protocol. Twitter fuckin sucks, man. It's designed around influencers and followers and dunking on each other than it is about discussion.
I've been feeling the same about "throwing notes out into the void". I was thinking people were just ignoring me specifically haha so thanks for posting.
Same for me but I also haven't posted much so maybe I just need to be more consistent and hope for the best. Or some nostr celebrity to "discover me" lol
I also tried to post smaller notes (basically crossposting what I post in the saloon) but also noticed a lack of engagement with that kind of content.
And I don't even want to post smaller notes:
A Twitter style social media never really appealed to me
That’s actually a smart idea. SimpleX is a good solution for DMs since you can create a new profile for each “place” you want to receive DMs from and it is anonymous and secure.
Yeah, Nostr DMs are horrible and should either be fixed or removed from the spec. Most people on Nostr have no idea how much metadata is leaked by DMs.
I always without exception use a VPN, if not VPN+TOR on nostr. Nostr by design is on the internet forever and who knows who is running relays. Not a great situation if you ask me. In no way shape or form are DMs on nostr private and any meta-data there isn't private either.
You guys just don't know how to use Nostr 😉 Even without a following you can get your notes shown to a lot of people just by using tags like this:
Let's say i want to write a note about #bitcoin, or maybe something about #privacy, i will use tags like this, and it will reach much more #nostr users.
I still try to post something at least 1-2 times a week but rarely get any interaction. Seems like a lot of my followers no longer have any activity. I’ve also noticed more and more of the people I follow have gone dark as well. Increasingly my timeline is also filled with the same recycled memes. I keep hoping things turn around at some point - I really did enjoy the platform for the first few months.
I use nostr regularly but it wasn't until I discovered SN that I saw the real engagement we get here.
Unfortunately with nostr unless your name is jack, will, gigi, odell, walker or derek Unfortunately your note is largely ignored 🙁
It's funny because when I was on nostr, I used to see SN links saying meme Monday 25k sats but you've got to post the meme on SN, I was like nah probably a scam 🤦
Only recently I've linked nostr to getalby and can zap to note without leaving the app
I've said this before but the SN model is excellent 👌 I know it's not pure lightning but it works brilliantly imo
IMO as long as its not a platform that holds your life savings, custodial solutions make sense. I will gradly get rug pulled my 9k sats in exchange for the amount of value I get from this website. Also most of those sats was stuff i got from engagement.
Daily active user here. Mostly on Damus, just started trying primal. Zapping sats to others post all the time. Slowly going away from X and use it to read only if I use it at all.
Yes I have been saying over there that if we truly want to replace centralised, censored, controlled social media then we have start lifting up and promoting non bitcoin and nostr dev content. That is crucial work but those of us who aren't devs can be building the other side of it while it's being built. Otherwise ppl who are not into btc or dev work will come, see nothing's happening and leave. I get largely ignored when I say this, so I sometimes wonder what the point is. I really hope these things change.
Yes that's what I tell myself, we're so early! But I do sometimes I wonder about some of the people who are there now. There's a lot of shitposting pure drivel and I'm not into that. And the dev chat, well I have no idea what they're talking about most of the time and there are a lot of "in jokes" that you are not party to. I guess it will take time to find like-minded folk who post decent, meaningful and interesting content. I'm not asking for anything super amazing to be honest, just a bit of genuine engagement, rather than endless memes.
It seems most people don't use nostr frequently. Check it occasionally, and follow the major nostr/bitcoin influencers but don't really engage beyond that. I guess if I had a magic wand I would convert bitcoin twitter to nostr and throw in some fiat maxis to spar with as well.
I have had no success in my nostr marketing test. I hate it but I think I have to promote the territory on twitter.
I guess if I had a magic wand I would convert bitcoin twitter to nostr and throw in some fiat maxis to spar with as well.
this is an excellent point.
nobody really appreciates the value of people who will honestly argue with your ideas until they’re gone.
if everyone on a platform holds the same worldview, the content gets stale pretty quick.
bitcoin haters are an important element to maintaining a healthy Bitcoin community on Twitter… they act as a magnet for rallying the Bitcoin troops in tough times and give Bitcoiners opportunities to dunk on their bad takes in good times.
Something I have noticed nostr is still not known outside Bitcoiners, nostr has important people as Jack or Snowden but nostr need that reputation as Lemmy has as decentralized alternative or Signal has as free speech.
Much less compared to last year. I got very busy with work and also moved mostly to using SN. I find that nostr lacks engagement, especially if you don't have a large following or if you're not very active. SN is much better when it comes to engagement. Small and moderately active accounts like mine still get zaps/replies to my posts and comments.
Maybe when it comes to social networks, centralization just have so many more edges that it's very difficult for decentralized social networks to compete.
I use about the same, I use it everyday and love the protocol, the seamless of login in many apps, the zaps it's great but we need more apps that are not about social. I share the same feeling of shouting in the void, social clients must fix this. But I belive nostr will succeed.
I used it a bit and it just felt like shouting into the void, just like twitter. I guess thast the point. Also they are too obsessed with bitcoin. I like that SN is branching out with topics now.
I'm on the way to create a NOSTR account... I need to try to use another wallet than Alby, because I don't have an invitation code, and Alby doesn't send to me :(
As I read about it, it is more different and distractive than usual social media platforms
I use Nostr more frequently than Twitter, but the amount of new content posted per day by the npubs I follow can be consumed in less than 15 minutes.
However, despite the lack of new content (everyone on Nostr is a Bitcoiner so there's no one to really 'dunk' on like Twitter), I get plenty of engagement when I post or reply compared to Twitter (where the algorithm suppresses you unless you are "trendy").
I love "nostr" the social network and the protocol, use it daily, and I love the young small community vibe - I feel a part of something online for the first time ever.
"lack of engagement" seems to be the theme of most replies here. I don't get it, this how I've felt everywhere BUT nostr 😆🤷
Anyway yes - there's lots of memes, lots of shit-posting, but also some amazing content once in a while. There is a ton of interaction that leads to further collaboration online and in-person (meetups, new apps and projects, conferences). Can't be a bad thing, right?
The main thing is that it's an open protocol anyone can use and build on. The world needs choices and I think it's a pretty awesome one.
Ever since Apple banned Damus from having a zap feature, I have stopped using Nostr. I don’t really know a substitute. Damus app on Apple was so easy to pick up
I have been using Nostr on a daily basis for more than a year now. I even closed my Twatter account because I was sick and tired of their bullshit. For me, finding Nostr is like finding Bitcoin. Once you really understand what it means as a freedom technology, it's hard to go back.
I keep using it and I really want nostr to succeed as protocol because censorship is getting harder in centralized social media. Nostr lacks the engagement like X, even Warpcast with a degen coin has better content and engagement.
UX on social client apps has gotten way better. Now using nostr contacts to send ecash and zaps in seconds. Really feels like we're just scratching the surface of what nostr is capable of. "Decentralized twitter" for nostr feels like "p2p electronic cash" for Bitcoin, in that it's still very early days