# Freedom Tech

July 18, 2023 · David Lick

> Freedom dies by people just taking little bit more and a little bit more… we just end up in a situation people are like “How the fuck did we end up here?” And at some point down the line you have to practice civil disobedience and say: “No, I will not fucking comply.”

> Matt Odell https://odell.xyz

Peter McCormack hosted Matt Odell on What Bitcoin Did with discussion focused around why decentralized technology is so important. I really enjoyed the podcast. For years now I’ve been cutting out services that someone else controls. Algorithms can be used to manipulate us. Centralized platforms can censor us. Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays) is Freedom Tech that fixes all of the problems I’ve had with centralized platforms and I am extremely bullish on it’s future.

Nostr is very simply a protocol for communicating. That’s it. Like RSS, or SMTP, or HTTP, or IP… It isn’t a platform. It isn’t an application. It doesn’t have content algorithms force feeding you things you don’t want to see. It’s a self curated feed of people you follow. It’s interoperable between clients which means I can use Amethyst and you can use Damus and we can still interact. It means I can decide to switch to another app and all my followers come with me. If app developers decide to behave badly I can write my own application in an afternoon. I host my own relay (wss://nostr.dvdt.dev) which means my notes are available for anyone to read as long as I feel like hosting them and no one can stop them.

Nostr is also monetized with Bitcoin. Zaps (lightning network payments) are built into the protocol. You can charge someone satoshis to let them use your relay. You can zap posts you like to support people doing or saying things you like. And all kinds of extensions have been written through NIPs (Nostr Improvement Possibilities) that add functionality to the protocol for marketplaces, communities (Reddit), and even events a la Facebook Events.

Nostr is unstoppable and it’s going to eat everything in the next few years. It’s as important and as foundational as IP.

You can find this Nostrich here: npub1mcneaunh0n9qy54sse0vr06nwhejzghumfjlmu3r54ugwx83qhlshqwtll