All I saw back then is that most commerce was happening on big corporate platforms whether it be digital or physical products.
Amazon. Ebay. Facebook Marketplace. Etsy. Fiverr. Upwork. And probably dozens more.
I was not satisfied with this in the least: I myself ran a business on Shopify for a while so I had hands on experience what it means to be on the small merchant side of these platforms.
Constant grinding on the latest algos, trying to manage multiple distribution and advertising channels, while trying to make a new and exciting product that stands out. It's almost impossible to keep up.
But anytime someone came up to our shop we provided an excellent customer experience, and we had good relationships with a couple of important figures in our industry. They spread the word around. This contributed to most of our sales and recognition.
- NOT the algo
- NOT the shiny Shopify theme with optimized SEO
- NOT that new Facebook campaign that had X amount of impressions and "funneled" people in.
Sorry guys but this is a fucking myth and you better face the fact that these platforms don't want you to succeed. They want to milk you and your connections and your ideas and innovations as long as they can, then throw you away.
How to break the network effects of these fiat platforms? The answer is very simple but not easy at all:
We must recreate bottom-up organic markets from grassroots communities based on authentic relationships.
NO platform will do this. NO politician can make this happen. NO social media viral bullshit circus will help you. It might give you the dopamine hit of 15-minutes fame then scam you into building your life on their walled garden.
Nostr *can* achieve this but not by default: If you think technology will bring you salvation on its own you will be sorely mistaken and disappointed.
It's always the people. The ones who care. The thousand true fans. YOUR thousand true fans. Not the number of clicks, shares, impressions, and views.
Nostr has the right elements to build on but currently it still lacks authentic connections and grassroots communities. It's fun to shitpost memes and fight over petty protocol minutiae but who's going to put in real effort to make real communities happen? We're still playing the game of big tech overlords until we do.
Individuals make communities that form markets. There's no other way.
quotingWant to build your own sovereign community around your software project?
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Take a look at
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BudaBit takes a community-first approach to software development unifying public collaboration with deep nostr-git integration and community-curation as a first-class feature:
- Create and manage Git Repos existing on GitHub, Gitlab, Gitea/Forgejo and self-hosted servers. Import your existing ones with ease! Keep projects mirrored on multiple servers powered by Nostr nip34!
- Code browsing, Issues and PR workflow
- Full-fledged Moderation UX with fine-grained content-scoped permissions
- Chat rooms, Forum Threads, Event Calendar and Fundraiser goals. Everything to keep your contributors and fans engaged! Get funding support from the thousand true fans and reward them with your own bespoke badges!
- The community can curate important Repos and code snippets to its own collections. Admin and moderators can grant access to members to distribute the effort
- Running Community infrastructure is optional but a good opportunity to monetize your efforts with a paid #blossom server, relay or git remote
- No special relay needed like with NIP29 groups!
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