chabalatabala

Nostr is much better protocol for this despite the bitcoin slant. That being said, i only follow non-bitcoin cultists (except some nostr devs that are also bitcoiners) and the sheer variety and different use cases of the apps being made,that are actually up and running and working, is crazy. And every time someone comes up with a new app idea/client, i just go there and immediately use it with my same identity with one click. Also Nostr is not vc backed and many unrelated devs work based on their own ambitions mostly from donations and funding from https://opensats.org/. Free Our Feeds, with much less money, could create a set of standard redundant general public relays that are not commonly added by all the bitcoiners to grow a userbase with unslanted eclectic content. For onboarding they shoudl create as service that combines creating a new account with assigning a domain-based handle and acting as an "nsecbunker" / event signer. This service has normal password and stuff that can be reset and stores the unchangeable public/private keys (also acts as a signer for events). To the user, the onboarding is just like email services: Pick a nostr name account host: you make an account with a name and password, then on each app you type in your handle and it directs to the nsecbunker software running on that provider that asks for your current password. If that service shuts down it's as easy as finng another oine and putting in your private key and your same identity keeps moving on, albeit your "handle" would be different. For smarter/technical users, they can just use an nsecbunker url or a signer extension. Honestly, a signer extensions (or app like amber) are like the best user experience but getting people to set up the app with a private key isn't a good experience yet.

ActivityPub is a page 1 design flaw with no independent identity. It's just a bunch of separate social networks that let an admin connect to other sites is a really subpar way. You have to juggle a bunch of accounts to see and do what you want on activitypub. Nostr is just a much better protocol for this kind of thing (and in general), but bitcoin bro boners scare people away rightfully so. Nostr as a protocol needs an alternative "scene" with a different set of standard relays that this org could provide. If they had an app they would be pre-set-up with those and they would be separate from the relays the current bitcoin peeps use. sure the bitcoin folks could add those relays too, but 1) they like using their own stuff so they likely would want to keep growing their homegrown relay community, and 2) it would hopefully not matter since the celebrity backed marketing effort that isn't focusing on censorship resistance would have more draw even if a chunk of them posted to those relays. Many nostr devs are onboard for good user driven moderation tools in clients, and any relay admin can moderate whatever as it is. Honestly I'd be fine with a basically a copy of nostr that wasn't nostr. But IMHO, without 1) independent user owned identity that works across everything & 2)community infrastructure than can easily be held up by the non-rich community if need be, then it's not a solution for the future.

Update: It seems yes there is no real decentralization in infrastructure. However it's great to see the eye is still on target: https://bnewbold.net/2024/atproto_progress/ . Sending good luck vibes to AT Protocol team for these goals to be reached.

All these are hardcoded to serve centralized content from bluesky's backend indexer right? if bluesky the company goes down, there's nothing to see right?

If so, I think AT protocol needs to figure out how to make community hosted infrastructure easy, affordable, *and popular* before doing anything else, because it seems like it's just growing to serve Bluesky's app, and that's a flawed perspective of development for something like a general use decentralized social protocol.

I just feel like if bitcoin people weren't the norm on nostr, there wouldnt' be much of a case for bluesky. nostr pretty much opens up possibilities and is living currently in a proven and actively scaling decentralized ecosystem.