Why protocol ecosystems often outlive applications.

Applications are businesses ,they can shut down, pivot, or get acquired. Protocols are shared infrastructure. HTTP, email (SMTP), and RSS all outlived the specific apps built on them. Nostr as a protocol will persist even if every current Nostr app disappears, because the spec is open and anyone can build a new client or relay. The data and identity don't belong to the app. This is the core advantage of building on a protocol rather than inside a platform, the platform can die; the protocol keeps running.