The Simple Premise: A Right, Not a Feature
The debate around Nostr often gets lost in technicalities. The fundamental issue, however, is disarmingly simple: a truly horizontal protocol must make every mechanism of curation, moderation, and discovery an option controlled by the end-user. Not an advanced setting, but the first principle.
The "cyberpunk spirit" is not aesthetic nostalgia. It is the practical realization that decentralized technology is of little use if its interfaces replicate the power dynamics of centralized platforms: a few design, many endure. True horizontality begins when the common user can respond to any algorithm or social mechanism with a simple question: "Can I see it? Can I adjust it? Can I turn it off?".
In its architectural essence, Nostr has no technical barriers to this. The problem is not the protocol, but the design mindset applied to it. This document outlines how a Nostr client built for the sovereign user does not add futuristic functions, but makes transparent and governable all those that already exist or are conceivable within the protocol.
Part 1: The Catalog of Control – What "Everything" Means
"Control over everything" is not hyperbole. It is a precise inventory of the mechanisms that make up the digital social experience. For the common user, this control must translate into elementary interfaces: switches, selectors, and sliders.
1.1 Control Over Curation and Sorting Algorithms
Every client implements logic to decide what to show and in what order. Today, this logic is often fixed and opaque. Tomorrow, it must be an exposed set of instructions.
- Base Algorithm Selection: A main dropdown menu: "How should your feed be ordered?".
Pure Chronological (from chosen relays)Web of Trust (WoT) - Priority to content from friends and friends of friendsEngagement Ranking (Reactions/Comments)Zap Ranking (Direct Monetary Support)Custom (Start Configuration...)
- Parameter Adjustment: If "WoT" is chosen, two simple sliders appear:
- Graph Depth: "Up to what level of indirect connections should be considered?" (Level 1: Only friends | Level 2: Friends of friends | Level 3: Friends of friends of friends).
- Effect Intensity: "How much should this filter weigh on the sorting?" (From "Light" to "Determinant").
- Total Deactivation: Next to each option, a global
ON/OFFswitch. When off, that algorithm is removed from the curation process. The user decides which logics are active in their ecosystem.
1.2 Control Over the Social Graph and Its Expansion
The "graph" is not an abstract concept. It is your network. Owning it means controlling its growth and structure.
- Discovery and Auto-Follow Modes: A "Discover" section with clear options:
Suggestions from my WoT network(Enable/Disable)Zap Trending in my Circle X(Enable/Disable)New users followed by more than 3 of my contacts(Enable/Disable)
- Managing Circles as Active Filters: Creating a "Photography" circle is not just a label. It is an applicable filter. After creating the circle, the interface asks: "Do you want to apply this circle as a viewing filter?". If yes, a dedicated "Photography" feed appears, showing only content from that circle, with its own independently configured sorting as described above.
- Inspection and Correction: An "Analyze my follows" button starts a process that shows: "40% of your new follows in the last 30 days come from a single suggester, @CuratorX. This has created a thematic cluster on 'Bitcoin'. [Clean up] [Keep]". Control is also awareness.
1.3 Control Over Reputation and Moderation Logics (WoT and Beyond)
The Web of Trust (WoT) is a powerful social algorithm. It must be a tool, not a law.
- Selective WoT Adoption: The user does not "use the WoT". They use specific instances of WoT.
- "Use my personal trust map (who I block, who I follow)"
ON/OFF - "Import and apply the public block list of @ModeratorGroupY"
ON/OFF-> (Once activated, shows: "This list contains 150 addresses. [View]") - "Consider reputation judgments from relay
wss://reputation.example"ON/OFF
- "Use my personal trust map (who I block, who I follow)"
- Influence Adjustment: Each reputation source has its own "Influence Weight" slider. You can give maximum weight to your personal judgments, medium weight to a shared trust list, and zero weight to global reputation systems.
- Transparency of Consequences: When a post is deprioritized or a user is filtered, an icon next to it explains: "Reduced visibility: High report rate from the list of @ModeratorGroupY, which you have activated at 50%." The user sees the effect of their choices.
Part 2: The Interface of Sovereignty – Simplicity Without Compromise
Implementing this control does not require NASA-style dashboards. It requires design coherence.
- The Global Switch Principle: For every macro-algorithmic functionality (WoT, suggestions, engagement ranking), there must be a prominent
ON/OFFswitch in the "Experience Preferences" section. Nothing is mandatory. - The Contextual "Why?" Principle: Wherever content is positioned, filtered, or suggested by an active logic, a
?icon or tooltip reveals the cause in simple language: "Top because: 1) You follow the author, 2) Author is highly zapped in the 'Technology' circle." - The "For Me" Profile Principle: The user's profile page does not show vanity stats, but their control settings in action. "Your main feed is currently ordered by: Chronological (60%) + Personal WoT (40%). New user discovery is DISABLED. You are using 2 external moderation lists." It is the user's configured identity.
Part 3: The Concrete Consequences – A Breathing Ecosystem
Putting this power in the hands of the common user does not create chaos. It creates an adaptive and resiliently healthy ecosystem.
- End of the Tyranny of the Single Algorithm: There will no longer be "the Nostr algorithm". There will be thousands of algorithmic combinations chosen and refined by users. Creators will not be able to optimize for a single system, but will have to produce genuine value that works within the different curation logics chosen by their audience.
- Market for Logics, Not for Data: Competition will shift. Developers will not compete to keep you in their app, but to offer the most intuitive and effective control tools. One client might distinguish itself by how it visualizes and allows adjustment of WoT; another by its highly configurable serendipitous discovery algorithms. Victory goes to whoever best serves user agency.
- Moderation as a Chosen Service, Not an Imposition: Block lists or reputation systems become market goods. A group maintaining a high-quality anti-spam list can charge for access or receive zaps. Users pay for a service they choose and can evaluate. Toxicity is fought not by a central dictator, but by a myriad of services competing for user trust.
The Final Call is for Design
The Nostr protocol is ready. Its NIPs (Nostr Implementation Possibilities) provide the raw tools. The challenge is no longer technical. It is one of philosophical design.
Client developers face a binary choice: to build yet another platform that decides for the user, albeit a decentralized one, or to build the first true social operating system, whose sole purpose is to execute the user's configured will.
The common user is offered a new responsibility: to stop asking "Is this client comfortable?" and start asking "Does this client obey me?". Simplicity must not be found in passivity, but in the clarity and effectiveness of control.
Nostr can be the definitive antithesis to the platform era. But it will only be so if we have the courage to understand the word "protocol" in its most radical sense: not as a specification for making servers talk, but as a technological constitution that places the individual as the sole and unchallengeable source of authority over their own digital experience.
Control is not a feature. It is the product. It is time to build it.
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Self-critical Methodological Note
Premises and Limits
- The analysis assumes that the will for explicit control is a latent and activable desire in the common user, overcoming his current resignation to passive comfort.
- Deliberately abstracts from any business model or economic sustainability constraints for client developers, focussing exclusively on the user-centric ideal.
Weaknesses and Questionable Choices
- Onboarding challenge: The text does not address how a new user, totally fasting, can deal with this "immediate sovereignty" without feeling overwhelmed. The simple interface still requires basic literacy.
- Implicit Conflict: Promoting the total transparency of algorithms (e.g. "because this post is at the top") could, in practice, make them more easily playable and manipulated by malicious actors, a paradox of unexplored transparency.
Warnings for Use
This document is a model of philosophical requirements for client development. It is not a user guide, nor a criticism of existing clients, but a declaration of intent for the future. Its usefulness is in providing a clear touchstone against which to measure concrete design choices: does each functionality approach or move away from this ideal of radical and transparent control?