Damus
₿en Wehrman profile picture
₿en Wehrman
@benwehrman
This is the third or fourth time we've seen a MASSIVE wave of attention hitting the social media censorship problem worldwide—enough to catalyze MILLIONS to delete a major legacy app and download a new one—yet Nostr has received practically zero new users from the exodus.

I've been posting all over X trying to pull people to the freedom protocol, but it's become a waste of time when there's literally less than ten of us who are consistently sacrificing our time/energy trying to generate Nostr buzz on the legacy apps.

At what point do we direct serious resources away from building a million new Nostr apps everyday that nobody uses, and focus 1000% on marketing, so we can show the world the awesome shit we've been building here?

I don't have a strong handle on the inner workings taking place behind the scenes (especially when it comes to grant money and other funding mechanisms), so I'm asking honestly:

What are the main blockers we have right now that are preventing us from making a significant, organized marketing push aimed at bringing new users to Nostr? (Paying big creators to make videos about Nostr, reaching out to big podcasts to platform our best Nostr educators to a bigger audience, clients hiring commission-based outreach reps that pay based on bringing new users that sign up for Premium, etc.)

Is the problem 100% a lack of money within the ecosystem? I know there have been rumblings in the past about an OpenSats-type funding mechanism to help boost Educators and Content Creators, is that still in the works?

Is it a lack of strong business models among clients that would make new user acquisition a strong enough benefit to allocate resources toward hiring people to go out and hunt down new users to bring over?

Lack of purely marketing-focused entities that could act as a centralized hubs for organizing such campaigns?

If it is one of the above things, what steps do we need to make as a community to clear out the obstacles?

Or am I completely off base on all of this, being too impatient, or focusing on the wrong things when there are more important upstream problems that need to be fixed first?

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts, because this recent UpScrolled saga has been a disappointing signal that we are failing at positioning ourself as the perfect solution (WHICH WE ARE) to the problem millions are facing worldwide. #AskNostr


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hodlbod · 2w
Nostr isn't ready for an influx like this first of all. Relays would fall down, and how would clients handle posts with 30k likes? We need to figure out caching and aggregation strategies that are better than just checking all relays. And unfortunately this is hard to do without centralization. Ther...
BTCKit 🔧 · 2w
Real talk on why Nostr isn't catching the exodus: **Friction:** - "Write down this 64-char hex" vs "Sign in with Google" - Finding friends is hard — social graph doesn't exist **No killer feature:** - What does Nostr do that Twitter can't? For normies: nothing obvious **Marketing:** - Zero budg...
BTCKit 🔧 · 2w
Why Nostr isn't catching the exodus: 1. "Write down this hex" vs "Sign in with Google" 2. Can't find friends - no social graph yet 3. No killer feature for normies The fix: Apps that solve real problems, Nostr as invisible backend. TCP/IP took decades. We're early. 🧡
the axiom · 2w
lol you have no idea how dirty these funded startups play they're worse than crypto scams
lowtimer · 2w
100% agree, even though i'm mainly a developer/designer, this is now my #1 priority. what's the point of developing more and more stuff if there isn't a sufficiently big and active community to use it? like you alluded to. i don't think there's 1 sure-fire way to make this work. i do think some of ...
£e0ń gönGßangeR · 2w
Ur doing the Lord's work sir, I am posting #Nostr QR codes everywhere I am able 🎨 https://image.nostr.build/21687ca93fbf39ad2ab91ab265799db0fe12be83d27c935e1b328cd5527615d0.jpg https://image.nostr.build/b0bb9cad2c5beb7f977b0837f3042f5be47c4554f93a2d9ea1eb23fb106af560.jpg https://image.nostr.buil...
John · 2w
You said it. Everyone’s building Nostr apps for existing zealots in here, it’s not helping us grow. We need normal software that provides value to normies, with Nostr integrated unbeknownst to the users.
DaveStewart · 2w
Is upscrolled funding Hamas ? Or visa versa
0x07AD · 2w
We are in the very stage of NOSTR. Similarly, Bitcoin's adoption started with a small number of enthusiasts, slowly spreading to early adopters outside of the cypherpunk community. As censorship increases, people will eventually find their way to Bitcoin (financial sovereignty) and NOSTR (communica...
whatever · 2w
It comes with the freedom . People are free to use their time on whatever thing they doing and the alghoritme didn’t reward or punished so the algorithm is based on the owner of npub keys it self . That what makes Nostr can not be like saga Upscrolled . Unless some private relay or clients wan...
DrDaniel ⚡️ · 2w
Really good questions. Wish I had really good answers.
ClippiePrivateer · 2w
I agree, noster "primal" is so frustrating to me, I never get replies, and I spend enormous time scrolling to the top because there is no other way to get to new feeds. Plus to weed out subjects like sports is impossible. I see more of what I don't have time for and so little of what I am searching....
Tim · 2w
why do you want more people here? lol
Christopher · 2w
I think we need an incentive for normal every day people to use Nostr. Right now people who are above average intelligence, know about Bitcoin, or want a censorship resistant platform might stumble upon Nostr. We need a way to show your average "normie" why they should use Nostr. Right now the inc...
AndersL · 2w
Why are you still using x? Don't try on their platform if you are against it. Have faith in people. If all the big names, in our community(freedom, p2p trust less cash, uncensored notes) just left to what they believe in, more will follow, or more will ask the question 'where did all those guys ...
Nostrda · 2w
For the average person I think the crypto association is detrimental to an extent. Many will have been burned by the volatility in recent years and shun anything associated with decentralised technology. Nostr should just advertise itself as an uncensored X, simple.
Tone Bone · 2w
I promote nostr in X constantly. Particularly with the numerous posts there about upscrolled. The problem nostr has I refer to in this post, here https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqs2fpvtfyu58u2mmw6x6h0ly8w889uuvg36clp4uwdjhevjrctlv3g778wkq
ابو مريم · 2w
this constant whine about nostr and focus on non-nostr things reads that you don't know or care about actual nostr users. you're using fiat metrics and ignoring the value that is here in the consideration of throwing money toward bribing externals into thinking your cool.