Can Content Creators Bypass Gatekeepers With This New Technology?

Does a new technology called Nostr have the potential to eliminate gatekeepers on the Internet and place the power of self-expression solely in the hands of content creators? Technology expert Wouter Constant and I debate the pros and cons of this emerging platform. 

For more information about Nostr, visit https://nostr.com/

You can reach me at chrisbournea@gmail.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

To me, a lot of users, it's not that we don't want any kind of moderation or curation or rules about hate speech, especially those of us who are uh, you know, people of color or come from a marginalized group. It's that it's so arbitrary and um there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it in the United States. Hello and welcome to the Culture Beats Podcast, featuring conversations about pop culture and many other aspects of life. I'm your host, Chris Bournet. My guest on this episode is technology expert Wouter Constant. I hope you enjoy our wide-ranging conversation about a new technology called Noster that he says has the potential to remove censorship and cultural control from large corporations and give content creators more freedom. Without further ado, here's our conversation. Yeah, Wouter, thanks again for making the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it. So can you kind of um give the listeners a little bit of background about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Uh about me. So from a from a formal standpoint, I studied economic history uh in Rotterdam. And I have mostly a background in what's called distributed computing from like a self-taught and general interest perspective. Uh and distributed computing is uh things of uh decentralized computing networks. So those could be torrents, is uh is a very well-known thing, like pirating or downloading uh um software or or stuff. Um later on, the the biggest decentralized computing network uh ever, uh Bitcoin, arised. So uh I had a lot of interest in that. And from there, slowly I ended up with Naster, which is going to be the discussion for today, right? Which is also a decentralized uh computing network for sharing information and creating social networks.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Right. So can you kind of um elaborate about Naster and and how it works?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Sure, where where where do you want to start?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, because I I looked up the website and I wasn't exactly sure that I grasped like what it is. I I mean I know what open source is sort of is like it's not is not owned by a corporation per se, but yeah, like for the average person who's not tech savvy, what how does it work?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Let's let's start with the um uh with the preamble of uh indeed this is a this is a protocol, and uh a protocol is uh tech speak for uh a system of shared rules, basically. And in in the most general sense, the we have a whole bunch of protocols in uh in our lives. Uh uh English, for example, or language is a protocol as well. Um, because they you know shared rules of grammar in to make sure that we as humans understand each other. Um, there are other protocols on top of that. You you're nodding your head as I'm speaking. This is also like a subconscious protocol that is running for you to make ensuring that I understand that you understand what I'm saying. Um but for computers, right? Correct, yeah. Um, but computers, computers need like explicit rules, right? There computers are very dumb machines, so you have to make uh explicit rules. So a protocol is just a list of these very explicit rules that computers understand. And in this case, these are rules for how data is structured, how data is exchanged, uh, and how data needs to be interpreted. Um, so that's a that's a protocol, it's an open protocol, which means that uh nobody is in charge of the thing. It's just we have this set of rules, and everybody can uh use these rules. It's not proprietary, it's not owned by anyone. Uh, and anyone is free to build on top of these uh on top of these rules. So free to build on top of this language. Um then that goes into this notion that it's not owned by anyone, it's just some guy who came up with this thing. Uh he put it out there in the world, and other people uh grabbed onto it, and that slowly evolved into more and more people starting to work on it. So there's no organization, there's no business, there's there's nothing there. Um, we do have a uh website which is nostra.com. It just so happens that the the person who owns nostra.com uh is friendly enough to uh make that available as a uh as a resource for for information for people to look at. So so that's nice. But it's not as if the the people behind not, it's not as if nostril.com is the official website because it's impossible to have an official website uh uh for for this system. Um so that all being said, I think the easiest thing is to uh explain it in contrast of the the world that we live now. So uh as I mentioned, it's a decentralized system. And in contrast, we now live in a centralized world uh on the web where we function based on platforms. So think of Facebook, think of uh X, think of Instagram. Uh these places are platforms, which means that they're essentially uh a single computer. Of course, these it's not a physical single computer, it's these large server farms and it may be distributed all over the place, but it's essentially one computer owned by one entity, uh, in case like being Meta or Elon Musk or whatever it is. And what you do on these platforms is the you log you log in into uh these platforms with an account. So you uh you knock on the door of this centralized computer and you say, please can I come in? Um, I want to have like an account here. Uh, I want to be this to be my name, this to be my picture, etc. And then that platform says, Okay, fine, you can come in. Um, we have all these other people here that are posting posting this stuff. And these platforms they facilitate three major things. So we can split that up in uh the notion of identity and network. So this is your account, and these are uh the people that you follow or people that follow you. Um, the second one is hosting. So this is uh actually storing the actual data and making it available to other people. So you're posting a tweet or you're uploading a picture, etc. That's that data has to be stored somewhere. That's something that the uh the platform does for you. And the third one is uh what you can call indexing, or um, these are search algorithms or suggestion feeds. So uh these are this is like um indexing or or processing all the all the data that is on this platform in order to figure out like what is relevant to you. That's the service that they provide. And uh what Noster, what what happens here is that these platforms um they captured what is called the network effect. And the network effect is this notion that a the value of a network grows exponentially in uh relation to the amount of nodes or participants that are in that network. So an easy example is telephones. If you only have one telephone in the world, it's absolutely useless. Um, the moment you have two telephones in the world, it starts to become useful because you now can call that particular person. But you can understand that if more and more telephones start to pop up in the uh in the world, you can call more and more people, all the way up to the point where it's uh it's a safe assumption that somebody has a telephone uh and a telephone number. Uh, and then we can build societal structures based on top of that. So now if you are interacting anywhere in this world, and if you assume that a business has a telephone number, if you have to fill in a form, you're most often have to uh uh provide a telephone number, etc. So we're because this network effect of telephones uh gets so big, we start to leverage uh it in other ways and start to integrate it into society as large. And this is what happens with these platforms. So um the the bottom line is everybody's there because everybody's there. That's the inherent logic of network effects. Um the problem is that uh the uh we there they provide the network effect, they've they've captured that in their in their little platform or the well, the large platform because Meta has basically the entire world registered in terms of accounts. They have billions of users. We only have like a billion people on this planet, so uh there's not a lot of room for growth there anymore. Um uh, but because they own that platform, they own that computer, they can uh the users of that platform incur what's called censorship risk. So that platform can decide who is allowed access, who is not allowed access, what type of communication is allowed, uh, what type of moderation is going on over there. And this means that they have the network effect, but you also are now at the behest of the the moderation and the censorship uh uh policies of these platforms. Now, um you can always go to another platform. For instance, you can be on YouTube, YouTube has the network effect for videos. Um, if you're somehow banned from YouTube or or otherwise, you can go to another video platform. The problem is that you are inherently self-marginalizing the moment you do that, because those other platforms don't have the network effect. The network effect is over at YouTube. So even though technically you can still express yourself on the internet, and this is because the internet itself is a censorship resistant technology that was once designed by the military explicitly for that purpose to be censorship resistant, from a from a societal and social perspective, uh you're you're uh missing out on this network effect. So this is the this is the world that we live in now. We're utilizing these platforms because they provide us all these tools. They uh are a location where the network effect is, so everybody's there because everybody's there. Uh, but at the same time, uh they are in charge of the moderation policy and everybody is incurring these censorship risks. So we are um, as a matter of fact, in our actions, we act as if this is a public space, right? As if we perform the public discussion on X, for example. Uh, but the problem is that it's not a public space, it's a private space because it's owned by a company. So what happens then is that now there are we are acting as if it's the public space. So now there are public interests involved, which means that uh governments start to step in because you know, the moment public interests are involved, governments are like, well, public interests are is is our our domain. So now we want to have a say about this. So where what we ended up in uh now in the start of 2026 is a situation where we have, let's say, a five-way tug of war with the platform in the center. We have on one of the ropes, we have the users, and there are the users of a very varied uh set of um interests there, right? Already. Uh we have the advertisements, if advertisers that are the actual customers of these of these platforms, the paying customers for the most part. Uh and then we have governments coming in, but it's not as if we have a world government. We have the United States, we have the European Union, we have Turkey, we have China, we have uh Australia. Um so it now becomes like a geopolitical battle that all try to tug on this central note of central platform as to what the policy ought to be, what the moderation policy ought to be. Um and basically that's a dead end. So this is the this is a scenario that I'm uh that I'm drawing here. And this allows me to subsequently explain Noster in relation to this. So do you do you have any questions so far, Chris?

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Yeah, so um it sounds like what you're saying is one of the upsides of an open source technology like Noster is basically no uh zero censorship, but basically any user can say anything they want. But I think what a lot of people have concerns with, with um, let's just use Facebook as a as an example, is not the fact that there's censorship, it's just it's that the um so-called moderation seems arbitrary, at least in the United States. It's like I've had things randomly pulled, you know, but someone else can post something that's complete misinformation. And at least from what I understand of the European Union, standards are a little more uniform. Like you can't use what is universally considered in the European Union hate speech, like posting about pro-Nazi propaganda, or you know, I don't live in the I don't live in Europe, so I don't know what what I'm saying is exactly true. I'm just saying it's to me, a lot of users, it's not that we don't want any kind of moderation or curation or rules about hate speech, especially those of us who are uh, you know, people of color or come from a marginalized group. It's that it's so arbitrary and um there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it in the United States. So are you saying that Naster is would totally bypass any kind of moderation or or as you termed it, censorship, and just anyone can post anything as long as the person on the receiving end wants to wants to wants to receive it, basically.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Ah, yes. So um uh you you need you you kneel the uh uh the nail on the hat there right at the end. Uh because uh in the the first part uh the first part of what you mentioned is what I'm what I'm going to describe is basically untangling this this knot at the center of this tug of war that's going on. Um because of the impossibility of providing a uh uh a moderation policy that satisfies uh this this this geopolitical clusterfuck, basically, of different perspectives on how things ought to be done uh uh all around the world, because these platforms are global, right? So what Noster does is uh it's a to to start out of so it's not a platform, it's a protocol, it's a language. Um and uh that language that allows you to create a uh a post, uh a message, and that could be like a tweet, it could be a picture, it could be an article, it could be a podcast, it could be anything that you would share uh or or publish on the on the web. So it allows you to create a publication. And what it uh subsequently does is that you uh provide a signature with that publication. And the signature is a crit, it's it's based on cryptography. You uh you're able to create a cryptographic identity yourself. You're not creating an account somewhere, you're just creating a cryptographic uh uh identity out of the blue, basically. Um or at least your computer does it, and the computer does the maths, obviously. Um But what what the nice thing about this this use of this cryptography is is that you uh the receiver is able to verify that the message is authentic. So um if if you know what my cryptographic name is, I can write a publication, I can produce uh produce a signature for that publication. And the moment when you receive that publication, you're able to run the math and see that it's actually valid in your you're able to verify that it was actually from me. Okay. And this is at the this is at the basis of how the system works. Because now I can go through these levels that I was explaining as to the identity layer of your your your your profile and uh your network, uh, the hosting and the indexing. And those were the three things that these platforms provide. So starting out with the identity is that we we've got that covered. It's not long, no longer an account at a platform anymore. It's something that you create yourself. And subsequently, your network is just like an address book of all these cryptographic identities uh uh that you've gathered over uh uh over the time. Um, people that you follow, people that you know, etc. Um, so you no longer didn't need any uh outside party uh anymore for you to to facilitate that. The second part is the hosting. So what uh uh what the result of these uh the use of this cryptography and these cryptographic signatures is is what we call temper proofing, which means that I can produce it on my side. There may be a third-party carrier in the middle before it arrives at your place, um, but the message that I produced is temper proof. The the carrier cannot tamper with that message without it being obvious that the message has been tempered with. So the moment the the care the third party carrier that's in between us uh tempers with the message, you immediately know that the message is invalid. And this means that it doesn't matter who is in between, it could be anyone because we don't have to trust the carrier for the integrity of the message anymore. And this is different with these platforms because when you go to Instagram, for example, and you see an Instagram post, the authority of the authenticity of that Instagram post is Instagram itself. It's not the person that published the the Instagram post, it's Instagram that actually said this person published his thing. Like it's not not that it's gonna happen, but technically Instagram could just take your account and start to create all kinds of publications uh that you've never that that you've never actually produced and start to pretend as if you were as you were saying this. Um, and this is impossible when you use this cryptography because the the carrier doesn't have my keys, right? The carrier doesn't know the cryptographic secret that I'm functioning under. So all the carrier has to do is deliver the message. It cannot tamper with the message without it being uh um noticed. So this means that it doesn't matter who the carrier is anymore, it doesn't matter where the data is hosted. So this means that we can decentralize the hosting. So it no longer rely, we don't all rely on Instagram.com anymore to host our pictures. It can be located anywhere. The only thing you as a follower need to know is where it is hosted in order to retrieve it. It's basically like a um um uh what's it uh uh a post office box, right? It's like I'm just saying like you can pick it up at this box over there, or you can pick it up at this box over there. Maybe I put it in three boxes at the set at the same time, and just pick it up at this whatever box it is that you is convenient for you. Um, and you can locally verify if the uh if the message was authentic. So we we had the identity layer that's no longer in the hands of the platform because we we have it ourselves. Um we have the hosting layer, which is now decentralized. We don't rely on a particular server anymore. We can use whatever server that we we think is convenient, and then the last part is the um the indexing, which is now a service that can be provided by anyone, it's basically an open market for providing you uh um suggestion algorithms or feeds or etc. And when we're talking about this notion of censorship, is uh at the hosting layer, because we're still using these third-party carriers, we're still using these post office boxes, right? And um, we rely on them to make ensure that my message gets over to your side. And this me, those those servers that we're using, they're still owned by people. That's still the same. And uh this is why I'd like to say that even though the point of Naster is to create, okay, let's let's this is important. The point of Nasser is to create censorship resistance, right? To solve this censorship problem that I was discussing, while at the same time providing the network effect. Whereas on these central platforms, we have the network effect, but we lose it the moment we go off the platform. The point of Naster is that we don't rely on any particular platform anymore. We're not being censored, we're not able to be censored by them, and we are still able to maintain network effect regardless of what server or what platform we start using. Um and uh the the point about censorship is that even though the system is created to be censorship resistant, I always like to say NASA is pro-censorship, by which I mean because the users are flexible into what server they're using, they can switch at any time. Um, this means that those servers themselves are free to apply whatever policy that they see fit. They own it's their computer, they own that thing. They can they can decide as to what they want to retrieve, uh, what they want to store, and what they want to give out and to whom. They can apply whatever policy that they see fit because they don't have to take into account that they are uh that they have this abstract uh uh uh debt to to humanity in order to facilitate all these uh lofty goals because everybody is dependent on them. No, nobody is dependent on them other than whatever uses that they they happen to have, and they can apply whatever policy of moderation or censorship, whatever it is that they want. And that boils down to exactly what you ended on, which is freedom of association. So Nasser provides freedom of association, it allows me to be in contact with my followers, it allows me to be in contact with the people that I follow in a way that no third party can get in between and stop me from following or uh being followed uh by my audience. Um, and as as a as a result, we have freedom of association, but we also untangled this knot of this five way tug of geopolitical war going on because. Because now we can just split up and apply whatever policy that we uh uh see fit, or apply it whatever jurisdiction, or we can have political or social debates on uh how things ought to be done, that's fine, because we're not all dependent on the same platform anymore. Do I make sense, Chris?

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah, yeah, you do. It sounds like though there are like pros and cons to what you described, because how do I, as the recipient, know what you're sending me? So, for example, if someone in Europe decided to send me something, you know, that's like encrypted, as you said, how do I know what I'm receiving? So say I'm just like bored at, you know, at work, as a lot of people do, they browse social media. Should you never open something from Noster because you don't know what somebody's, even though you know the person and you don't know what it I could be opening some violent image that my coworker walking by my computer sees and thinks, oh, I need to report the I need to report him to the police because he's looking at violent images on his work computer or even his own personal phone or whatever. How do how do I, as the recipient, know what the sender is sending me and it's not something that in my country is illegal?

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Ah, um well, there are uh I guess there are a couple of answers. So the the the the obvious one is most of the time you know who you whom you're following, right? Or or what your feed is constructed out of. Uh so it's not as if your grandma all of a sudden starts to uh share all kinds of raunchy pictures, right? Um uh but there are also uh like on the what we call client side, so the software that you're using that can start to uh filter uh uh out certain things. So it can do language filtering or it can do image filtering based on the uh the stuff that it is. And it that's software that you use, right? It's you could you're controlling this software. Um uh so it's not somebody else that uh decides that for you. And the third layer is so we first we had like the social layer as to who you trust in the first place. The second layer is this the client that you're using, the software that you're using that can apply these types of techniques. And the the last layer is that it could actually be the server that you're relying on, which in NOSR we call relays. Um so you could just be using a server that um uh filters out, like has a moderation policy that is safe for work, for example. So whatever, especially in the hours that you're at the office, you're only connecting to those servers that already filtered uh the stuff that is safe for work. And then by you're basically extending trust to that server to apply those policies. Um and subsequently you're able to apply all three of those methods at the same time. So at in the first instance, you're only in contact with people that uh uh do not post any weird stuff. Uh you're connecting to relays that filter out any weird stuff. And um uh at a last as a last resort, you're also using software that might may any weird stuff coming in, it starts to filter out that out as well. So we're we're very flexible as to how we're able to uh tackle or manage our our own digital environments as to what it is that we actually want to see uh and with whom and in what manner we actually want to interact with.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah, what you're describing kind of sounds like um certain technologies like um certain smart TVs allow parental controls, like per parents can set up filters or blockers rather to keep their children from seeing certain content. Is that is that basically what you're describing? Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yes, but it's a uh uh uh there's a very important aspect here uh that that I think is important to describe. Because all that I've described now is basically how this this language, this protocol functions. It's uh you're you're just creating publications, you're signing it uh with uh with your signature, and then you're using these these servers that we call relays in order to exchange them. Uh and this is subsequently what the the name NOSTR stands for. It's notes and other stuff transmitted by relays. So this notes is N-O-T-E-S, right? So it's we have notes like tweets and other stuff, and that's like pictures or weather reports or whatever it is that you want to you want to share on the web, uh transmitted by relays. So that's the the the technical description of what what is going on. Um what that means in practice is that you can use any software you want. It the only thing that software has to do is speak the nostral language. Okay. So um we can have like apps that look like Twitter, for example. And I have on my phone, I have like five different applications. They're completely different. Uh they look sort of they look sort of similar because they they try to do uh take if like a Twitter vibe or or a Twitter interface uh looking at tweets. Um, but I can switch to them uh at any moment. So if there are features in one particular app that I like or dis let's say I dislike them, I can always go to another app where there are features that are not present there, or if there are features that are uh that I do like, for example, these parental controls or content filtering or whatever it is, I can just whenever I'm at the office, I use the app that is like very locked down. And when I'm when I'm at home again, I'm I'm just start using another app uh that is that is far more open. Um, so this is this is important that you uh you're not locked to a particular app anymore. You're not we're not NASA frees you from a particular platform, and it also frees you from using a particular app. So we're now free to interact with whomever we want using whatever application that we want. And we don't even have to use the same app. We the only the only thing the app does is it allows you to create this publication and sign it, and it allows you to retrieve other publications from other people uh at these these relays or or post office boxes, basically. That's what these these uh that's what the clients offer or the the the apps on your phone or the web or your computer or your tablet or whatever, uh all these things exist already, um uh do for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

So would it would maybe an analogy be like something like crypto or Bitcoin where um it's not can you know maybe not controlled by a specific bank and it's not tied to like a certain bank account? Is that kind of a similar yes?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

And one thing is also similar is that you you're not tied to a particular app. You're not like with Bitcoin, you you can use a wallet, what's what's called a wallet. Okay. Um and there are there are different types of wallets, different type of software. Uh there are also hardware wallets like these hardware devices, and they're a plethora of of these hardware devices. Um, another example would be um email. Email is also uh uh an open protocol. It's it's an old open protocol, and we we we actually use it at the foundation of a lot of this stuff because when you're signing up for an account at a platform, and it also it also always boils down to an email basically. Um so and with email, you uh you can use Hotmail, you can use Outlook, you can use Gmail, you can use ProtonMail, uh all these different uh service providers, they're all allowing you to use email. And me using Proton Mail can send an email to you using Gmail. That doesn't matter. The thing with with email is that it's still tied to a particular server, right? Your email address is always at gmail.com. So this is where Nostra is different, is you're no longer tied to the at Gmail anymore. You're you're free to use whatever service is continued at the time, and you can switch to uh uh a different service uh at any moment.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like with any technology, there's um you know, any technology is basically a tool. Like a hammer, you can, you know, this is not an original analogy, but you can use a hammer to build a house or to bludgeon someone. So it seems like with Nostra or with any open source technology, it can be used, like you said, to for freedom of expression, but it could also be used, for example, terrorists to pass messages back and forth and not be detected by law enforcement. I'm not saying that's the purpose. I'm just saying with any technology to it can be.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

It's a wrong example because for the most part, uh what Naster is built for and NOSTAR is used for is public information, right? I'm talking about publications. Yeah, so this is a very public-facing uh thing. Uh that doesn't mean that everything uh that it's complete there, there is no such thing as privacy. Um, it's important to to uh define privacy. Privacy is the ability to just to uh disclose, to have the ability or control to disclose whatever it is you want to do the outside world. Um so I could be for one example of uh privacy is for example, paywall content, right? Um I have some control as to uh who gets to see what at what uh under what condition. Um these these things are possible within Noster, but the the the main thing is that it's you're you're creating publications, you're signing it with your you're you're producing it with a signature, right? You're you're putting your name underneath it. If I'm doing very clandestine criminal operations, I'm not even gonna sign things in the first place, right? I don't want it, I don't want it to be traceable in uh in any way. So um um for the most part, other uh other types of technologies would be would be used for uh clandestine uh uh secret that's that's the word like secret operations. Um so that that that's one part. The the other part is yes, of course, it is able you are able to um uh for example, uh child abuse material or um uh sex tortion is like another thing. So you're you're you're posting raunchy pictures of somebody else, right? Or you're blackmailing them uh uh with that type of stuff. Um the thing, the thing there is that you uh, and this is this is a very important discussion uh because this is this is something that we're facing right now in in various countries, be that uh countries within the EU or Australia or Great Britain or uh to some extent America or or everywhere in the world, um, is the fundamental question do we want the internet to be permissionless or not? Do we want the internet to be permissionless, where you can just connect to the internet and you can start interacting with other people without going through some gate in order to get permission to enter? Uh uh, or um do we uh and accept the risks that come with that stuff? Um uh that there are bad people in the world that do share nasty things, uh, which ultimately are still just people in the physical world, in a physical place that you can look up and lock up, right? There's still law enforcement enforcement capabilities uh uh in these types of scenarios. Um, or do we say, no, we we don't we want to give up this freedom of a permissionless internet uh because of these reasons, and we're gonna put the government in control, you have to provide your passport. You're gonna sit down behind your computer, you have to put your passport into the computer, you have to stick it in, uh, you have to scan your eyeball, whatever it is, uh uh, but in order to get permission to enter the internet, um uh uh to give us the idea that we can prevent this this type of stuff. Um uh that's that's basically the fundamental the discussion that that goes on here. And uh with Noster, and uh for me personally, and with the people involved with Naster, uh we want to keep the internet permissioned. So we understand, oh sorry, permissionless. Um we understand that there are problems with these uh platforms. Uh like I said, this this uh five-way geopolitical tug of war going on. Um we want to solve that. And I hopefully I explain how we are able to uh disentangle that that knot uh by allowing freedom of association um uh instead of all depending on on particular platforms that have to define a policy for the entire world. Um we we want to solve a lot of these issues that we have with the internet, but we still want to maintain the freedom to uh associate with whomever uh we want, because I'm not I'm not an asshole. Uh I'm not gonna do nasty things or criminal things, and most of the other people in the world uh are also not gonna do that stuff. And we have a whole lot of benefit and innovation and uh uh of being able to have an open internet and communicate and interact with each other, especially with you if you also consider is that if we put the government in charge, how are we gonna ensure that the government is actually uh uh uh gonna do a good job as to being in control over uh over the internet, right? Are they gonna run a ministry of truth? Um, like who who guards the guards, right? You get all these these fundamental philosophical questions uh uh going on. And I think at least in the in the west, we have a long philosophical tradition that informs us that uh uh that's that's not a good road of uh uh to go down. Um uh and we we've we've we've been on this road of liberty for a very long time now. Um, and I I think personally for very good reason. And uh I think uh the the idea behind Noster is to continue uh that tradition of of freedom of association and liberty of expression and and that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yeah, it seems like um in an ideal world, Noster would be used for what the internet was originally supposed to be about was the free exchange of ideas, exactly, and the democratizing of a means to which to express those ideas with ideas without a gatekeeper, a corporate gatekeeper telling you what you can and you cannot say, or putting walls up or you know, borders, so to speak, between people in different countries or different parts of the of the world.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yes, exactly. And that uh one of the interesting phenomena with Nasser is that there are a lot of of old farts, uh like old IT guys, right? Uh, that that built the the early internet, um, that uh when the moment when they get aware of Nasser, they're they're immediately enthusiastic because they they identify exactly this. Is that uh when they were younger and they and they built the internet, they had this vision, they slowly saw that vision erode over time with uh the emergence of these platforms. Um and now with Nasser, they uh they they start to identify that we we have an option here or or a chance to uh rebuild uh a lot of these things in a way that better adheres to the to the original vision. Because what the problem was um with the the the first version of the web 1.0 basically was this this this friction of network effect. Um these platforms they they made it very very convenient to create a page, right? You didn't have to create your own website, you could just go to MySpace, right? It started a lot, a lot of this started with MySpace related Facebook. You just had to go to their website, and you could very easily create a page on their website instead of having your own website. Um and uh and then subsequently everybody just went to Facebook, and now we have this network effect going on. And with Nasser, we're able to just break this up again. Um, and it's very easy, and we we've made it very easy for people to create their own digital uh presence, their their own digital identity and create their own digital networks and maintain network effect and not just network effect of uh within, and this is also why I think uh Naster has an actual chance because the the network effect is really, really strong, right? It's very difficult to dethrone Facebook uh because everybody's already there. So and it's very difficult to migrate people to other places. Um, if you if if everybody is using a particular chat app, it's very difficult to uh to convince all your friends to start using a different thing. So um, and this is because of this network effect. Um what is important with Naster is that um on these platforms, the network effect is often in these verticals. So we have YouTube does videos, and uh X does tweets, and Instagram does pictures, and booking.com does hotels and vacations, and you have uh Uber does taxis, and uh uh Uber Eats does food delivery or whatever it is. Um, those are all particular verticals with Noster. Uh you're able to uh connect all these verticals horizontally and create these network effects horizontally. So I can have a uh a network of uh chefs, chefs that I'm following. And maybe those chefs they they produce recipes, right? So I have a recipe app and I I use I leverage this this network of chefs to figure out like what are nice recipes for me to cook. But then subsequently I can also start looking at a uh a restaurant review uh uh app, for example, to pick out a restaurant or to book to book a restaurant, and then I can leverage this this network of chefs that maybe also uh have opinions on what are actually the good restaurants uh uh around a certain place. Um so you can start to see is like you're able to, because you're you're not you're never losing the network that you, your social network that you've already created, you can start to apply it off over all these very all these over all these different domains. So we're with NASA able to actually create this horizontal network effect and not just within this particular vertical. And that's that's our secret weapon. Um that hopefully at some point we are we have like a marginal Twitter and we have a marginal Instagram and we have a marginal YouTube, and they're they're they're very marginal, not a lot of users. They're maybe the apps aren't very great, but we have everything at least everything, but a lot of small amount of users. But the for those small amount of users, it's actually more convenient now to use Noster because they have all their stuff in there. They have their videos and their podcasts and their articles and their uh the restaurant, and all these things are now there. So the network effect for all these marginal things is now stronger than the individual network effects of all these particular silos in the center. And at that point, um, it starts to become a lot easier for me to convince other people. It's like, well, you know, this is my life. My life is that I don't I can use whatever app that I want. I'm not stuck with a particular app. You're you keep complaining that you don't like this new feature or this change because you're stuck, right? You're stuck in this uh in this environment. Uh and I'm not stuck. I can use whatever app and I'm using it for all these different types of things, and I'm can maintain my social network. Uh, and the the network effect that we have uh horizontally over all these various domains starts to become larger as to what these uh um uh larger incumbent players have have accrued over time for their particular vertical. Now, of course, they are competing with each other because you notice that X starts to also introduce uh articles and also starts to introduce videos, and uh maybe YouTube started to also introduce like the shorts to compete more with uh with TikTok. So they are slowly trying to all compete to become the everything app. But that's actually a worse because now if they also become the everything app, they're they also have to decide like the design policy for the everything application, that you're also not going to satisfy everybody because everybody wants to, like I wanted to have a look or feel differently, et cetera. Um, so I I think we have a an actual decent shot at competing in the long term at least, uh, with with the incumbent systems. And that's important because we we have a long history of attempts and uh existing open protocols out there um that had very various success. Um, and I think we actually have like a road to victory here with with Noster, at least in the long term.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

So, yeah, you you mentioned um all these multimedia um forms of communication. So if someone using Noster, they know that this person is uh sending me an audio podcast while this other person that I communicate or that I exchange or whatever that I receive uh encrypted um messages from, they're sending me a video. This person is usually sending me a text-based message or communication. So Nasser can handle all those different formats, video, audio. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Yes. So there so to one thing to clarify is that the the the publications are not encrypted, they're not secret in that sense. What they they contain a cryptographic signature. So that's it's just it's just if you you you put actually produce like a signature with your hand, um, which is probably unique to so to some degree. Uh the thing is just with cryptographic signatures, they're extremely unique. So they're they're very they're you cannot uh um falsify. Uh you I may be able to falsify your your handwritten written signature. Uh you're never gonna falsify my my digital signature, uh, provided that that the uh uh that the keys that I use are not the secret that I have is not compromised, um, which which is important to note. Um what is what is important to understand within this paradigm that I'm that I'm explaining is that from the perspective of a content creator, is in the old in the the current slash old system, you have to have a YouTube account and you have to have a Twitter account and you have to all these accounts for these various platforms for all the types of multimedia that you're producing. So if you're producing a podcast, you have a Spotify account. If you're you're you have your you're you're uploading the video to YouTube, maybe you have your you're you're posting the announcement of the fact that the the the episode is out, you boot that on Twitter. Um maybe you write an article about the podcast and you put that on on Substack or whatever the uh platform that is. With Nasser, the the whole point is that you you don't have a whole variety of accounts, you just have one profile, which is Chris. I'm I'm Chris, I'm this content producer, and I produce a podcast, and I produce an article, and I produce a tweet, and I produce you just produce those things, you give you provide them with the same signature, you just put that out there, and when I'm when I follow you, I follow Chris, and when I use an app that is built for tweets, I can see, oh, he he posted a tweet announcing the the podcast, and I can just click on that, and that opens up another app that is built for podcasts, and then I can just listen to your podcast, or I I go to another app that uh that when I'm browsing my video app, I can see, oh wait, uh um the the video of Chris popped up into my feed. Um, and the same thing with the articles, etc. It's just you create these publications, and it's just depending on if I'm following you, I'm I'm just I'm still following you over all these apps. I'm because I'm I'm I am following you, and it just depends on am I using uh a tweet app or am I using a video app or am I using a podcast app or maybe an app that combines all these features. Um uh doesn't matter. I'm just I'm following you, and the software just provides me an interface to interface with whatever media it is that you uh uh that you've published. So I as a user am flexible in whatever app that I use, and you as a content creator are flexible in the sense that you're you don't have to uh maintain all these various accounts at these various places. Uh maybe have to host redundantly because you're not doing just YouTube, you're also doing Rumble, and you have to also cover all these marginal platforms. That's all gone within Austrian. It's just you, you create your publication, whatever that publication is, it's a tweet or a video or whatever. You provide it with your signature, therefore proving it came from you, and then whomever it is that is following you or uh uh uh you come along in their feed is able to consume whatever your publication is with whatever app that they happen to use.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

It kind of reminds me a little bit of like um the early days of um streaming and like music file sharing with Napster. Yeah. But the the um the the drawback with Napster is that you know artists and record companies were saying, Oh, this is copyright infringement. You're sharing you know music that someone created, and no, you know, no one's or one only one person paid for it, and whoever downloads it is not paying for it. So what what are the copyright and or are there any copyright infringement issues with with Noster?

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Um, well, copyright is an interesting question uh uh in relation to to the internet, exactly for the reason that you it's an old discussion, right? It's not as if the discussion now immediately just pops up with the existence of Noster. This is just a default discussion that is uh there with the internet, um, because it's just very easy to duplicate data and share data. Um the the nice thing about Noster is that uh Noster is actually built uh or thought of by uh a Bitcoin developer. And uh this also means that the the first people that were aware of uh um uh of Naster were his buddies, which were also Bitcoin developers. Um and as a consequence, the first community that started to use Noster were a lot of Bitcoiners. Um, so to to reiterate, it's not Naster and by itself has nothing to do with Bitcoin. It's just so happens that these are the type of people that think in a certain way in order to construct these types of things. Um it doesn't work like Bitcoin, it has nothing to do with Bitcoin, but because Bitcoin is digital money for the internet, there are very tight integrations built into Nasser with Bitcoin already. Now you could also integrate credit cards or whatever other cryptocurrency. It just happens that Bitcoin is already very well integrated, and um, the type of uh micropayments and streaming payments to pay for content already exists, and we already have um uh um it's again marginal, but we have artists coming in, uh musicians coming in uh that already experience that they have a very tight direct contact connection with their audience on Noster, and that audience is able to just send them money directly. And um they only have to, it's a very low threshold to actually do such a thing, to the point where these artists are making already making more money on Noster, marginal amounts still. Yeah, they're not getting rich, um, but they're already making more money than they've made on Spotify those preceding years, their entire artist's career. So the system is already benefiting them more than Spotify ever did. Um so and like it's it's um what do you say? It's like it's it's a speculation as to how these things will evolve, but it's not that they're we it's not that we're not without an answer. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna claim that this is the answer. I'm not gonna claim that in 10 years uh uh these types of systems actually solve all the problems that are out there. Uh, but it's not that we are completely without an answer as to uh how do we solve for financial incentives and uh that type of stuff. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

So how how how do you think the word spreads and how does how do how does Naster get more people using it?

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Is it just through word of mouth and um just kind of organically or how how will I think I think that's the um uh so there are there are two ways. Um this is a new paradigm. So let me start out with this. This is a new paradigm, and um I've spent a lot of time uh first trying to understand this new paradigm, and then spent a lot of time thinking about how to communicate communicate this paradigm and explain this paradigm to people and uh to to perhaps varying audiences and and adjustments to my story, etc. Uh, because it's just it's just there are things that are different as to how things are working now. Um, that's not necessarily a problem. Uh, people learned to use the current internet. Um, and uh that was new at some point, right? So people had to learn a lot of things in order to use the current internet. Um, that also means that they would have to learn some certain things in to use this new type of internet. Um uh while at the same time, they uh they're in an environment where uh there are not as many people as there are in the old internet, old internet, right? Facebook has so many billions of users, Naster hasn't. So uh when you're coming in uh within a Noster environment, you're basically doing two things. You have to put in the effort to uh do this the basic social media stuff or or the basic internet stuff to create your connections and uh uh find people you are thinking are interesting in an environment that is relatively scarce, while at the same time you're confronted with learning new stuff, um, maybe in an environment where not all the software is all that great, right? Uh um so it's just a certain certain type of person that at this stage, or at least let's say the past three years, uh um was involved with Nostra. And as more people join and the software gets better, um, it starts to become uh more and more people are um uh able to come in and get actually get through that process in a manner. It's like, okay, there are more people, it's easier to find other people, the software is easier to use. So now not just the tech nerds, but other people are now coming are able to come in, right? And that's a that's a that's a scale, that's a uh that's a spectrum of of type of users. So let's say at the end of the spectrum is like your grandma, right? Um, so at the at the start of the spectrum is like the tech nerd, it's me. And at the end of the spectrum is like your grandma, and they're we're we're just moving along that that process. And that means that I am not, I'm not like at the end of this, I'm not gonna have any call to action. My only call to action is like go to nostril.com. If you think it's interesting, you can go there. The the resources are there, and if you're able to figure it out, you're like you're able to figure it out, and uh that's where we at right now. Because I'm not gonna try to force your grandma to start using Nostra because maybe if she figured it out for like a little bit, she's gonna start quit using it after a day. And like what what use was that, right? Um, so my my personal belief is that it is this organic growth by by word of mouth. I'm I'm doing these podcasts. Uh, whomever thinks it's interesting and got through this explanation and actually understood what I said, um, and it it clicked for them. Um they they they have the means to to figure it out and and go out there. Um and and go to YouTube and find tutorials. And there's stuff out there that will help you along this this journey. Um, but I'm not I'm not uh I'm not selling anyone anything. Uh I'm just here to explain. And I think that's the that's the main driver. Um or that's that's the the base flow, let's say, of like this word of mouth thing. And then we have the the carrot and the stick. Um there are areas where Nasser is better. There are not there's not a lot of carrot there, right? But there is there is carrot there. I mean, especially for content creators, there's a lot of carrot, it's just not a lot of audience, but it's it's a small little carrot at least. Um, and there is a lot of stick, and the stick is growing a lot. Um, we have legislation going on, the platforms are getting crappier and crappier, you're getting washed with ads, you're you're you're using Netflix, you're paying for Netflix, and you're still uh forced to watch ads or whatever. Um uh so uh governments are coming in with regulation, uh tightening things. So there's a lot of there's a lot of reason as to why being in these central platforms is not a nice experience anymore. So for more and more people, that's just got to be a pressure to leave. And uh so that's the carrot and uh sorry, that's the stick, and then there is some carrot on the other side there as to why we are better uh uh at doing certain things. And in between, there's just me trying to explain things and people doing word of mouth and uh all this other type of stuff to to grow this thing uh uh organically and provide resources for people to uh to figure things out.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Yeah, well, you did you did a great job of explaining and going through the pros and cons. So I really appreciate you uh Valer taking the time to to speak with me and to um to explain the the benefits of uh of of Noster. And I'm sure there are a lot of people who are curious, and like you said, it's just it's up to us who are curious about it to to uh go seek it out and figure out how to use it.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Excellent. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, like really, thank you. I mean, it's just I'm I'm just here. I'll I'll go to whomever wants to listen, and I'm I'm very grateful for uh the fact you uh you gave me this hour to uh uh to have this talk with you.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Yeah, thanks again for taking the time and for so uh patiently answering all my questions and being willing to debate about the pros and cons. I really appreciate it. Perfect. Thank you for listening to the Culture Beats Podcast. If you like this content and would like to lend your support, please leave us a review, a rating, andor a comment. That helps other people discover the podcast. Culture Beats is an independent endeavor. Views expressed by guests are their own. Thanks again, and talk to you soon.