What is Nostr and is it the future of decentralized social media?

The quest for censorship-resistant social media platforms, but also for their viability in terms of reach, continues and one of the new contenders being talked about is an open and decentralized protocol called Nostr. Decentralization is ensured by allowing the use of self-owned accounts and identities. Follow our tutorial on how to get started with Nostr on Android. Follow our tutorial on how to get started with Nostr on iPhone. Other than protecting users from what’s become rampant censorship on major centralized social media, Nostr is also seen as a possible way to deal with some of the shortcomings of most, if not all decentralized alternatives: a smaller number of users, and no easy way to also transfer followers and content to a new platform. As a protocol, Nostr is supposed to be used in creating a network that shares data around the world, based on user clients rather than centralized servers. However, the “use and feel” element is meant to allow people to use it much like they do platforms like Twitter: posting, liking posts, following, unfollowing others, and reposting their content (“notes”). Much of the protocol’s goals and nature are revealed in its “full” name, of which Nostr is only an acronym; it is, “Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays.” It is precisely these replays that are put to use as a way to transmit censorship-resistant and secure messages between users. But it isn’t a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Relays are described as “dumb” and lightweight, but also…What is Nostr and is it the future of decentralized social media?