There are these basic ideas that I see repeated all the time, like "owning your data", that for some reason most people who comment on these protocols and technology topics have.
These people almost always come up with an understanding of Nostr that involves a "platform" or "app" and then users "own their data" and can "migrate" so they're not "locked".
I have no idea why so many people, including many people who actually support Nostr, have this weird understanding, it's like hardwired in their brains maybe, because these are exactly the same ideas that led to the creation of ATProto and Mastodon and many other dead protocols in the past.
In ATProto and in Mastodon the user really has an "account" in a "platform" and relies on that platform for everything. In Mastodon, though, the user is just stuck there forever. The great innovation of ATProto was making it so the user could do that and still "own their data" and "migrate" to another platform (of course they didn't really fix decentralized identities, just moved the problem to another platform that they control and controls everybody's identities, but that is besides the point).
Considering that people just see Nostr, read that it is a "decentralized protocol" and immediately assume it is some variant of the scheme above, the comparison with ATProto and Mastodon is of course necessary. But of course Nostr is not in that paradigm at all, it's a completely different thing. What would take them to understand?
fiatjaf
npub180…jh6w6
2026-09-11 12:46:12 GMT
in reply to nevent1q…uwn8
Author Public Key
npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6Published at
2026-09-11 12:46:12 GMTEvent JSON
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"content": "There are these basic ideas that I see repeated all the time, like \"owning your data\", that for some reason most people who comment on these protocols and technology topics have.\n\nThese people almost always come up with an understanding of Nostr that involves a \"platform\" or \"app\" and then users \"own their data\" and can \"migrate\" so they're not \"locked\".\n\nI have no idea why so many people, including many people who actually support Nostr, have this weird understanding, it's like hardwired in their brains maybe, because these are exactly the same ideas that led to the creation of ATProto and Mastodon and many other dead protocols in the past.\n\nIn ATProto and in Mastodon the user really has an \"account\" in a \"platform\" and relies on that platform for everything. In Mastodon, though, the user is just stuck there forever. The great innovation of ATProto was making it so the user could do that and still \"own their data\" and \"migrate\" to another platform (of course they didn't really fix decentralized identities, just moved the problem to another platform that they control and controls everybody's identities, but that is besides the point).\n\nConsidering that people just see Nostr, read that it is a \"decentralized protocol\" and immediately assume it is some variant of the scheme above, the comparison with ATProto and Mastodon is of course necessary. But of course Nostr is not in that paradigm at all, it's a completely different thing. What would take them to understand?",
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