melvincarvalho on Nostr: When someone says 'Feature X is impossible,' it often really means 'You won’t get ...
When someone says 'Feature X is impossible,' it often really means 'You won’t get permission to roll out Feature X.' This has become the norm in Nostr for some time now. Nostr was intended to be a space for permissionless innovation, where 1000 ideas could bloom, but over the past year, things have become more centralized, with only a small group of developers able to push things forward.
A year ago, we saw a lot of exciting development happening, but much of that has since slowed down. The regular updates we used to see are now rarer. The beauty of an open protocol like HTTP is that anyone can create their idea without needing permission, but lately, we’ve even heard that developers are being told they can’t submit NIPs because 'the NIPs are scarce.' When innovation gets restricted like this, it sends a clear message. Nostr, while never fully open or community-driven, is now being seen for what it is—a more centralized, proprietary space.
That said, there are still a handful of really good developers pushing hard, and that gives some hope that things can turn around. Maybe one day, Nostr will become the open, transparent protocol we hoped for, like Bitcoin, but there’s still a way to go, and the developer exodus continues
A year ago, we saw a lot of exciting development happening, but much of that has since slowed down. The regular updates we used to see are now rarer. The beauty of an open protocol like HTTP is that anyone can create their idea without needing permission, but lately, we’ve even heard that developers are being told they can’t submit NIPs because 'the NIPs are scarce.' When innovation gets restricted like this, it sends a clear message. Nostr, while never fully open or community-driven, is now being seen for what it is—a more centralized, proprietary space.
That said, there are still a handful of really good developers pushing hard, and that gives some hope that things can turn around. Maybe one day, Nostr will become the open, transparent protocol we hoped for, like Bitcoin, but there’s still a way to go, and the developer exodus continues