A Comparison of Decentralized Social Protocols: Nostr and Farcaster

"The new social layer allows us to meet the needs of those who want a completely open “town square” and those who prioritize carefully managed and curated experiences... Private companies cannot be public squares, but protocols can be".

While Nostr or Farcaster can be "censorship-resistant because ... no one can send them deletion requests", if that Level 1 infrastructure is all you have, then "all you get is a distributed 4chan" - yuck. So you need a Level 2 "layer of for-profit companies and clients to act as curators and moderators... you can pay for curation from the New York Times or the Joe Rogan Experience." Then you can have social media without worrying about “deplatforming, while also allowing users to choose a curated experience".

So how does Nostr and Farcaster support this? They "both use relays (or “hubs” in Farcaster) to store social data (posts) and transmit it to users... Farcaster uses an Ethereum-like architecture ... while Nostr does not use a blockchain (... theoretically it can support any blockchain)."

"Farcaster is venture capital-backed ... Nostr is not a company ... created by an anonymous person with no funding", until Jack Dorsey passed them 14 BTC.

Farcaster is easier to develop on, "while Nostr’s simplicity ... makes client development more challenging in the short term but allows for many potential business models... use cases... Relays on Nostr can charge subscription fees, display ads, or choose other ways to determine what content to include or exclude."