Nostr is an inclusive communication commons
Ranked #4 on Hacker News with 82 points and 28 comments.
Nostr is an inclusive communication commons. A simple standard that defines a scalable architecture of clients and servers that can be used to spread information freely. Not controlled by any corporation or government, anyone can build on Nostr and anyone can use it.
Like the internet itself: open and chaotic
Nostr embraces the chaos of the early internet—multiple kinds of data, diverse forms of user interaction and different clients providing their own perspectives over the same underlying information.
The client is the app that is running on your computer or phone, the server is whatever is running on a cloud somewhere with a domain name. In centralized platforms and other protocols, one client talks to a single server. In Nostr clients connect to many.
Nostr's single unit of information is a cryptographically signed note, these are created by users in their client software and published to one or more relays.
Clients are smart and act as agents for the users who install them. They decide which relays to connect to and when and what data to request according to the circumstance and user preferences.