Nostr Reviews on Nostr: GM #Nostr! After much testing and discussion with the developer, I have decided ...
GM #Nostr!
After much testing and discussion with the developer, I have decided #Shopstr is not yet ready for a full review.
The short version is, Shopstr is a fantastic idea and I hope to see it build upon the foundation that has been laid, but there are still some major pitfalls to using NIP-99 based marketplaces in general.
A good chunk of this is no fault of Shopstr's solo developer, calvadev (npub16dh…0nkq), whatsoever. This is because communication between a buyer and a seller must happen privately somehow, and DMs on Nostr are currently a mess. The best we currently have are NIP-17 DMs, but they are not supported by some of the most popular clients, and sometimes they aren't received even on clients that do support them.
For the sake of his users' privacy, calvadev (npub16dh…0nkq) has relied on the best Nostr-native standard we currently have available to us for communication. Additionally, he has sought to mitigate the poor receiver-side privacy of Lightning by routing payments via eCash and sent to the seller via DM. A sort of VPN-for-payments approach, which is quite clever in my opinion.
However, since not everyone is using a client that can receive NIP-17 DMs, and even those who are don't check their DM requests regularly, this has resulted in a poor experience for both buyers and sellers, with some sellers resolving to take their listings down altogether. Hopefully we will see a better spec for DMs soon, and we will see wide adoption of it by clients, so these types of issues can be resolved.
Until then, and because it is largely no fault of the dev, I do not feel I can give Shopstr a fair shake at a full review.
I'll start looking into the next app I want to review shortly. Stay tuned!
After much testing and discussion with the developer, I have decided #Shopstr is not yet ready for a full review.
The short version is, Shopstr is a fantastic idea and I hope to see it build upon the foundation that has been laid, but there are still some major pitfalls to using NIP-99 based marketplaces in general.
A good chunk of this is no fault of Shopstr's solo developer, calvadev (npub16dh…0nkq), whatsoever. This is because communication between a buyer and a seller must happen privately somehow, and DMs on Nostr are currently a mess. The best we currently have are NIP-17 DMs, but they are not supported by some of the most popular clients, and sometimes they aren't received even on clients that do support them.
For the sake of his users' privacy, calvadev (npub16dh…0nkq) has relied on the best Nostr-native standard we currently have available to us for communication. Additionally, he has sought to mitigate the poor receiver-side privacy of Lightning by routing payments via eCash and sent to the seller via DM. A sort of VPN-for-payments approach, which is quite clever in my opinion.
However, since not everyone is using a client that can receive NIP-17 DMs, and even those who are don't check their DM requests regularly, this has resulted in a poor experience for both buyers and sellers, with some sellers resolving to take their listings down altogether. Hopefully we will see a better spec for DMs soon, and we will see wide adoption of it by clients, so these types of issues can be resolved.
Until then, and because it is largely no fault of the dev, I do not feel I can give Shopstr a fair shake at a full review.
I'll start looking into the next app I want to review shortly. Stay tuned!