Curious to hear how your nostr usage has changed over the last year
I use Nostr more than I did last year49.6%
I use Nostr less than I did last year41.6%
I have never used Nostr8.8%
125 votes \ poll ended
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.
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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.
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198 sats \ 4 replies \ @kr OP 26 Jan
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.
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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.
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Zapping is a really cool feature and I think it could lead to many other use cases
like what?
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v4v long form content. Supporting artists. Selling/commerce etc.
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You'd eed mass adoption for it to be meaningful and this is lacking at the moment...
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You expressed my thoughts perfectly
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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.
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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.
Def have a better time on SN
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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.
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188 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 26 Jan
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
-- @DEADBEEF, above
update: I mostly use it for DMs since I only have nostr and SimpleX in my profile as DMs options
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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.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 27 Jan
And nostr is like the opposite of that but there are more people DMing me on nostr though lol
The eternal trade-off between network effects and UX vs security and privacy
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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.
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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.
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Believe me, I’ve tried that. I just must be really boring or something 😅
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178 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr OP 26 Jan
fair enough, i’m in a similar position.
i just checked and my last nostr post was 4 months ago, though i still check my feed from time to time
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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.
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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
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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.
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687 sats \ 0 replies \ @KLT 26 Jan
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.
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I use it less.
I love the platform and the wonky experience, but there's zero interaction if you're not a "bitcoin influencer" already.
I'm still bullish on Nostr, though. Someone will fix it soon enough.
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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.
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I've tried to do exactly that with no result so far, but hey... we're so early.
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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.
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More but the experience hasn't improved much unfortunately.
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113 sats \ 5 replies \ @kr OP 26 Jan
if you could wave a magic wand and improve one thing about the nostr experience, what would it be?
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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.
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104 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr OP 26 Jan
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.
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Nostr definitely needs breadth of subject matter and opinion also a few news sources would be good too. At least breaking news.
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Make it more like SN. 🤪
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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.
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I am actually using only Nostr, as I deleted my X account last year, and haven’t tried anything else (mastodon, or what is the name, for example).
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I'm loving it more and more, but Stacker News has me in it's hooks.
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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.
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Used it for a day then not again
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr OP 26 Jan
how come you didn’t return?
technical issues? ux issues? lack of interesting content?
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Didn't really see a need for it. Technical aspects seemed fine. UX felt like twitter (I think I used Damus), which I am not a user of anyway.
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I use it to share clips and my random stupid thoughts. I scroll to see funny memes but overall it is a ghost town
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Less. Too many people started talked too much about bitcoin and not a lot else.
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420 sats \ 2 replies \ @OT 26 Jan
Less than SN usually
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Is that because nostr lacks cowboy hats?
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381 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 26 Jan
Lol no,
Probably because I get more meaningful engagement here.
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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.
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I don't think I had started using it a year ago, so it's "more" by default.
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i use nostr a lot more (Primal, Nostur and Damus) i enjoy the vibe, and the echo chamber tbh. best part about twottr anyways
also much more active on SN lately, not for professional stuff, just friggin #poasting
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300 sats \ 0 replies \ @ibz 27 Jan
Seems that all the meaningful discussions from Twitter have moved to SN, not to Nostr. So I don't see much point in using yet another social client.
However, I have used Nostr the protocol quite a bit, since over the past year we have built a marketplace on top of Nostr.
So yeah, good protocol, but pretty useless as a social network IMO.
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386 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 26 Jan
Maybe we should create a post on nostr asking if their SN usage has changed (if they ever used it) but there would probably be no engagement, lol
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Desktop Primal is working great lately.
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260 sats \ 0 replies \ @kruw 26 Jan
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").
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To be fair, I don't really use any social media very much.
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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.
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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
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It was fun at the beginning, but now I get zero interaction and no one zaps anyone anymore.
I view my feed once in a while, mostly for the memes, but don't post.
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I use it a lot more, hardly go on Twitter anymore, but in general been trying to cut down on the social media stuff
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Much more, and i think people would appreciate more and more its cryptographic nature and decentralized soul when enshittification evolves
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More and more!
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getting banned on X taught me a lesson
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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.
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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
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181 sats \ 1 reply \ @Atreus 26 Jan
What do you all think could be done to improve things on Nostr and encourage more use by Bitcoin plebs?
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giving people either content or experiences they can’t get on other social platforms
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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.
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Less - mainly because I'm an idiot so didn't back up my private key, and then my phone broke! Lebowski_Deux will be born soon.
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Daily active user.
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It works better than I initially expected. I also noticed that the experience has a lot of variation depending on the client. Choose a good client.
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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.
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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
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Ef Elon!
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