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@ 🔥 Plus Ultra ❄️
2025-03-09 05:45:16
Just read your arguments. I should have done that before making my last reply.
[please excuse the shitcoin analogy below]
The argument seems similar to Vitalik's argument against node upgrades that would require high-performance hardware. He believed it was important to keep the protocol simple enough for "consumer hardware" to keep up with consensus. Otherwise, he argued, it's too much of a centralizing force.
On the other end of the spectrum was Solana, which embraced complexity and required high-spec hardware for validators. Toly's argument was that "gaming rigs" aren't prohibitively expensive and scalability will increase as silicon continues to improve.
Solana's approach proved to be better, IMO (especially when only considering L1).
Ethereum was forced to build L2's to compete with Solana's low latency and better UX. L2's are a single high-performance server, or "sequencer", and some even have custom silicon. So the simpler, more decentralized, consumer hardware path was forced to become extremely centralized, extremely complex, and requires truly cost-prohibitive hardware to compete.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that's a valid analogy.
I have a limited understanding of the protocol, but intuitively, I think deleting may be much simpler and require less messaging overhead to implement. If that's correct, perhaps deletes could be a good compromise.
Thinking of Nostr as a ubiquitous, decentralized RSS type protocol was something I hadn't considered yet. I was simply thinking of it as a competitor to X. But even in this context, I can envision the ability to delete to also be desirable.
Instagam, YouTube, Twitter etc. didn't allow editing, but they did allow deleting. Also, if a typo, error, or embassing note is really bothering a user, the ability to delete and re-post is pretty close to an edit.
Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc. also didn't have competitors with massive existing network effects and polished UI/UX. Nostr does (at least the microblogging applications built on top of it).
There's a few books I highly rerecommend:
The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen, Zero to One by Peter Theil, and the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries and Trout. A common theme through all of them is that it's critical to have an offering that's novel. It's effectively impossible to successfuly compete in a category with existing, well-established players. The only way to win is to create a new category.
BTC is #1 simply because it was the first in it's category. Monero created a new category: privacy coin, and therefore its now the #1 privacy coin (even though Zcash and others are arguably better). Ethereum created a new category: smart contract blockchain, and it's #1 in its category. Solana created a new category: low-latency blockchain, and it's #1 in that category. That's just the blockchain examples.
There's always room for a #2, but going for #3 or higher is a losing proposition. Coke, Pepsi. Microsoft, Macintosh. iPhone, Android. and so on. There's a reason Reis and Trout call the laws "immutable."
Now that I understand that Nostr is more than an X competitor, but instead a generalized, decentralized back end, perhaps there's a new category that can be created on top of the protocol. An application that invents a new category would have a shot at establishing critical mass network effects.