Recently, #Nostr protocol has started to gain traction, apparently because a former Twitter CEO started promoting it.
In this post I want to compare it with #ActivityPub because some people think Nostr is superior.
Advantages
- Censhorship resistance. If one relay prevents you from communicating with your friend, you can easily add another one.
- Identity is not attached to a particular server.
While these things are good and important, there's nothing in ActivityPub spec that prevents developers from implementing them. Nostr proponents are lying about that, even on their official website. Chatternet project clearly demonstrates that you can use DIDs with ActivityPub. It can't connect to existing Fediverse platforms but I'm implementing similar solutions in Mitra in a way that preserves backwards compatibility as much as possible.
Disadvantages
I won't talk about the problems that can be solved, because obviously Nostr ecosystem is very young. But in my opinion it has three fundamental flaws:
- Clients can hide important protocol details from the user. Choosing relays and managing private keys is burdensome, so clients that don't force user to think about this will be more popular. As a result, people flock to sites like iris.to and this will lead to extreme centralization. This happened to all other web3 social platforms, and we can already see this happening to Nostr.
- Nostr was created by bitcoin cultists and they have complete control over the NIP process. If you want to use any other currency there's always a risk that your proposals will be censored. And tying entire ecosystem to a single non-fungible coin is generally a bad idea.
- Nostr is not based on web standards. This means it won't benefit from the adoption of emerging standards like DIDs and verifiable credentials. Reinvention of the wheel leads to unnecessary fragmentation and harms everyone.
So I see no reason to build anything on Nostr. Also, despite the hype I doubt that it will ever become more popular than Fediverse because ordinary people and organizations don't care about "censorship resistance" and "zaps". For them Fediverse is good enough.
running into an issue boosting and favoriting from @MonaApp while logged in to a #takahe account. Not high priority since the first version against core Mastodon hasn't been finished, but FYI!
Fascinating to watch these bigger Mastodon instances collapse and shut down.
It was a good episode of @Popehat 's Serious Trouble podcast this week.
I laughed out loud at the latest incarnation of the running gag of "Do not talk about the crime you're accused of committing on X".
We've learned not to talk about it on Twitter and Substack. But this week is a real gem.
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/a-jury-so-special-and-grand#details
I haven't been a listener long enough to know whether we've already learned not to talk about your alleged-criming on a podcast, YouTube, or in your book.
Groups can do things that hashtags can't. For example, groups:
* are moderated
* can re-share content
* can speak as a group
Joining and contributing to a Friendica group is easy. To share your posts to @fediversenews, follow these steps:
1. Follow @fediversenews
2. When sharing Fediverse news, tag @fediversenews
3. The @fediversenews group will then re-share your post
This is an actively moderated group. Be sure to stay on topic, or your posts will be removed.
Remember, you don't even need to be a Friendica user to join @fediversenews. Because Friendica is part of the Fediverse, this group is available to everyone -- including people who use Mastodon!
“We deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration’s subsequent comments." https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/college-board-desantis-slander-african-american-studies-1234678400/
The Smyrna Public Library just got a copy of "Cooperatives at Work" by @SocialCoop's very own @emi and @Matt_Noyes (et al.)!
@atomicpoet I remember when I was on here a few years ago someone yelled at me because I shared a link that simply relied on Cloudflare
What I've been saying for months: just because you don't want something to be built doesn't mean it won't be built!
There's nothing about ActivityPub or Mastodon's API that prevents the existence of Wildebeest.
And in many ways, Wildebeest is not just inevitable -- it's the first of many Big Tech projects that are to come.
Even if you don't like this, it's near-impossible to prevent.
Are you all going to Fediblock not just Wildebeest but every Mastodon instance that uses Cloudflare?
gotta hand it to elon he's done more to help people get over their twitter addictions than anyone
This Week On Serious Trouble: Elon Musk and what juries are like, SBF and what clients are like (and what bankruptcy trustees are like), George Santos and his marriage to Morgan Fairchild, Eastman and Girardi and what the California State Bar is like.
https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/elon-being-elon-gets-a-win#details
“This is just wild,” said Leon Derczynski, a professor of computer science at the IT University of Copenhagen, who specializes in online harm. “Objectification of women seems deeply embedded in the system.”
Is it wild, CS Prof. Leon Derczynski? Really??
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/08/biased-ai-algorithms-racy-women-bodies
My local feed hasn’t update in a real long time on Metatext #takahe
“At press time, ChatGPT had resigned itself to diffusing art on the side, at least until it had paid off its student loans.” https://www.theonion.com/chatgpt-forced-to-take-bar-exam-even-though-dream-was-t-1850036337
the REITs tend to be run by the same people who, unapologetically, publish open letters claiming that people at Google make too much. literally. the same people.
10yo: papa, what's the probability that, out of 15 Among Us players, me and my two friends are selected as imposters?
Me: let me tell you about the beautiful world of combinations and permutations. Are the imposters different from one another?
Math nerd for life.
NEW MASTODON USERS: Do not worry about which instance you first join, after a short initial period the Sorting Hat determines which instance each new user belongs most to.
@icecubesapp@mastodon.cloud
Dear Thomas,
unfortunately, your iOS app IceCubes does not work with the Fediverse software Takahē , which I find very unfortunate. Maybe you can fix it so that I can put my toots here too :)
In my opinion, ChatGPT really exposes the edifice of centering college around tests instead of instruction. This ignores what they should be measuring and how the world actually works, which is vibes.
If you enjoy interacting with people who have strong opinions and minimal real life experiences, may I recommend teenagers.