What Nostr doesn't do

The Nostr protocol is amazing. I love learning about it every day, and it’s inspiring to see all the developer activity in this ecosystem. I believe it has a real shot at bringing us closer to a more decentralized internet. However, it won’t solve all problems. That’s why I decided to write a short post about what Nostr does and doesn’t do.

Attacks from Governments

When Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in August 2024, many said that couldn’t happen on Nostr. They’re right — no Nostr CEO will ever be arrested, as long as there is no Nostr CEO (ok, maybe Derek Ross)).

Nostr’s strength lies in its decentralized nature, making it difficult to shut down. Anyone can run relays and create notes, which creates a regulatory hydra that is nearly impossible to kill. However, individual users can still be identified and shut down if they don’t carefully protect their IP addresses and dissociate from their real identities.

Social Media Ills

Another misconception about Nostr is that it will solve all of social media’s problems. Will it? In his manifesto, Fiatjaf identified many issues with the current state of social media. Most of them stem from the fact that it is centralized and therefore vulnerable to censorship by big tech and governments. This is true, and Nostr is a solid answer to the problem of centralization and censorship.

However, some argue that social media’s problems go beyond censorship. Social envy, addiction, and other issues persist. While I agree that individuals and their communities, rather than governments, are responsible for addressing many of these problems, they are still real issues, and Nostr can’t easily fix them.

Bots

Bots are a major issue on social media, especially on Crypto Twitter, where scams often aim to drain user wallets. Nostr also has bots and a spam problem. It’s incredibly easy to create an npub/nsec key pair, allowing for the quick creation of bot armies that post kind 1 notes and other information. So, Nostr is not, nor will it be, free of bots.

However, Nostr has a few valuable tools at its disposal to reign them in: WoT scores, Zaps, and Filters. Let’s see how these tools will be used to tackle this problem.

Society

While Pavel Durov’s arrest caused an outcry among Nostriches, many commentators said, “Well, that’s what you get if you don’t censor.” I think the need for free speech is still poorly understood and not recognized as a core pillar of free societies. As long as people don’t see the importance of uncensored free speech, they will struggle to understand the benefits of Nostr.

Nostr can’t fix that, but it can be a bastion of free speech for those who value it and help ignite a fire of free discourse that others can join once they recognize the need.