David Sterry on Nostr: Sat down yesterday to write a page about wisdom for Nostr and this is what came out ...

Sat down yesterday to write a page about wisdom for Nostr and this is what came out


April 24th, 2024 - Wisdom, Competition and Success

Nostr is a strangely wise place. It's good because it helps us appreciate what we have while sharing collective insights about the future. For example we know Nostr is small but that each platform that grows and dies gives us a chance to make it the next big one.

Talk to a CEO in their early days and they tend to be idealistic wishing to democratize the net or disrupt finance but time and time again as the numbers grow they get more focused on the bottom line. The money and power displace the ideals. This is one reason we believe decentralization is so important. It places a ceiling on how much power any one entity can amass.

The downside of this however is it can extend as a philosophy into everything. No relay should get too big. No client should get too much market share or strong-arm the protocol. In this way romance for freedom and decentralization can majorly slow us down.

We know our principles around open source software, resiliency of decentralization and the freedom to tinker. We'll always have those. It's important however to be mindful that competition to create the next dominant platform is fierce. The wise path is to rally around what's working best today.