Remember the old tales of people in the Eastern bloc having to cook up dirt as "Ersatzschokolade"? image And real chocolate made out of cacao was only reserved for the privileged few with connections? Yes, people in Western Europe used to make fun of it and found it quite unbelievable that people were forced to put up with it. Well, that was in the latter half of the 20th century. Fast forward to 2025 and the success of the combined wisdom of Berlin & Brussels economic planning make it possible to see a revival of that specific type of product. "Raw materials right from your own region!" "Good for the climate!" "Vegan!" image At least back in the old Eastern bloc days, they did not have the audacity to sell the people on how their ongoing impoverishment and destitute is "akshually good for them" - and had at least the intention (albeit with misguided means) to improve the standard of living of their citiziens. image Meanwhile in Asia: image The good thing: If you use & save in real money, you can afford real chocolate. The people who use & save in fake money, will be forced to go for fake chocolate. We all make our choices and will earn the results.
View from an irregular Nostr user (myself): Disclaimer: As things change on here by the week, as a "non-power user" one is certainly quickly falling behind, so the following statement might be already outdated. With that said: While Primal seems to have - currently - the best UX ( you can read most notes and loading times are fast - which is not necessarily true for some other interfaces such as Snort or Iris)... when it comes to "ZAP"ping, it seems that it simply is not possible if you follow standard Bitcoin security practices. image w As in: You never (as in: NEVER!) have the ability to sign transactions on the same device that you use to browse the Internet. Currently - it seems - "zap"ping on Primal requires either the Primal Wallet/App ( I use a Browser and keep any apps on my phones to an absolute minimum - hence not an option ) and or NWC... which also requires signing capability on the same device that you use to browse the Internet. On some of the other Nostr clients it is possible to zap from a different device - you can press the "zap" button, obtain a QR code/Lightning invoice... and then simply scan the QR code from a separate dedicated device connected to a dedicated node. Browsing and transaction signing capabilities clearly separated. Currently Primal makes it easy if you are fine to ignore these iron security rules - but also leads to more Sats being held in a closed ecosystem/custodial where... it is absolutely not necessary (imho). The current way the Zap mode on Primal is provided is not interoperable with any other Lightning wallet (and/or node!) - it requires you to have Sats on your Primal Wallet and/or NWC... on the same device that you use to browse the Internet. Some (most?) people might just not care, but it's currently the "main blocker" in my personal Primal UX. I do not want to install an app. I do not want to install a Browser extension. Kim Jong Un wants me to press the button - and I do not want to press it. Yes, it is paranoid. But as the old saying goes: "Only the paranoid survive". Or the recent beautiful iteration of it by @EVAN KALOUDIS : "Systems that heavily rely on trust have the best UX until they have the worst UX." Currently on Primal, if I want to zap someone - I need to load the note via a different interface... and hope, that I can even load the note. At which point - unless I really, really want to zap the person - the drop-off rate increases drastically and the Zap will not take place. With that said: All of this might have already been solved at the time of writing - and I just haven't discovered yet how to do so. If so, feel free to call me out as a noob'ish Nostr laggard - and lmk how to zap on Primal from a different device than the one used to browse the internet.