Historically, status came from demonstrable value. The blacksmith who made better tools. The storyteller who held attention. The builder whose structures stood. You couldn’t fake competence because reality tested you.

Social media broke that. It created a parallel status system where perception became untethered from reality. You don’t need to be good. You need to appear good at the right time to the right algorithm. Pretending for some machine to think you’re relevant.

What makes people quit Nostr is that they’ve never had to build real value before. They’ve only had to simulate it.