We’re going to be seeing more and more of stuff like the newly launched Twitter-style microblogging app called Damus, which is now available on Apple’s App Store after undergoing testing.

Damus uses a decentralized protocol called Nostr (Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays), a network based on cryptographic key pairs, which is not peer-to-peer, and is very simple to use and easily scalable. After downloading the app, you can create a profile, choose a user name, add a photo and a background from a server, and post updates (not limited to 280 characters) and send direct messages, completely end-to-end encrypted. To do this, it uses a system of a public key and private key that you get when you register, which also means you don’t have to provide an email or phone number. In addition, it can be used to make payments through the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

This is different to Mastodon, where users’ accounts are linked to a particular server whose administrators have a certain level of control over registered users. In short, Mastodon’s reliability depends on the server being used: if it falls its capacity to enter or use the network is affected. In Damus, the information is stored in a series of decentralized relays, which means that, instead of having a single company or entity in control of the data, it is distributed across several nodes within the network, making it more secure and resistant to censorship or manipulation. According to the message on the page, “you are in control… there is no platform that can ban or censor you. You are in control of your data.” Or as Edward Snowden puts it on Twitter,

Unlike the old social media “platforms” where the platform-owner (Facebook, Tiktok, Twitter) gets to decide who can speak — and what can be heard — Nostr is an open protocol. If a platform is a silo, a protocol is a river: no one owns it, and everyone is free to swim.

Apparently, Damus’s total decentralization posed a problem in getting the app registered with the App Store, which insisted on asking the app to specify rules for users to flag potentially offensive or dangerous content, as well as its policy on preventing abuse. The network claims to have these issues under control, but was rejected for that reason, until it was finally accepted yesterday.

There’s nothing to indicate that this app will be a success, and for the moment, it’s just an experiment. There’s a lot going on in the field of decentralized apps at the moment, and the only indicator of its popularity may be its 24,500 or so Damus followers on Twitter. From that to considering overshadowing it may overtake Twitter is a long way down the adoption curve, although positive feedback from people like Jack Dorsey, Vitalik Buterin or Edward Snowden may boost its popularity.

What is certain is that we will see more and more apps with new functions as part of an evolutionary process that may change an increasingly interesting environment, and one that will likely have very different rules from the internet as we know it.

UPDATE (03/03/2023): The application has just been retired from the App Store in China…

https://medium.com/enrique-dans/how-decentralized-apps-could-change-social-networks-for-the-better-b3bf6c9887dd