Documentation
Research
Sources
Content Discovery Evidence: 2024-2025

Content Discovery Evidence: 2024-2025

Findings on content discovery problems in Nostr apps from verified sources.

Sources: Verified web sources with URLs only. All findings without verifiable URLs have been removed.

1. RETENTION & COLD START CRISIS

Finding 1.1: Retention Crisis

  • Quote: “According to nostr.band, retention of trusted users 30 days after signups trends to 0 for recent cohorts. Daily active users averaging in the 10,000-12,000 range for ’trusted’ pub keys. As of October 2024, there are only ~36,000 weekly active users on Nostr right now, and less than 15,000 daily active users.”
  • Source: https://stats.nostr.band/
  • Date: October 2024
  • Context: Nostr.band tracks retention metrics and DAU/WAU. Despite growth in total signups, active user numbers remain flat. Post-viral-event retention failure after Brazil Twitter ban and other spikes.
  • Category: Retention / Empty feed

Finding 1.2: Content Scarcity & Chicken-Egg Problem

  • Quote: “Nostr is lacking in content, which could be the primary reason people are not sticking around after trying it. Nostr suffers from the chicken/egg problem where new users are needed to generate more content, and more content is needed to retain new users. Traditional apps win simply by having much better content selection - you get to see a variety of interesting things that Nostr simply can’t match.”
  • Source: https://karnage.npub.pro/post/1711761836895/ (“The State of Nostr Clients” by karnage)
  • Date: March 30, 2024
  • Context: Cold start problem where empty feeds drive users away before they contribute content. Direct comparison showing Nostr’s content discovery deficit compared to mainstream platforms.
  • Category: Empty feed / Feed quality / Cold start

2. DISCOVERY MECHANISMS

Finding 2.1: No External Growth Loops

  • Quote: “Nostr does not seem to have any external growth loops, such as the ability to invite people by email with a single click”
  • Source: https://karnage.npub.pro/post/1711761836895/ (“The State of Nostr Clients” by karnage)
  • Date: March 30, 2024
  • Context: No mechanisms to help users discover or invite others
  • Category: Discovery

Finding 2.2: No Tag Notifications

  • Quote: “Users are not notified when tagged, and people have to have a habit of opening the app to know if something is happening”
  • Source: https://karnage.npub.pro/post/1711761836895/ (“The State of Nostr Clients” by karnage)
  • Date: March 30, 2024
  • Context: Discovery problem - users miss interactions
  • Category: Discovery / Core interactions

Finding 2.3: Weak Habit Formation

  • Quote: “Habit formation of using a new app is important in the early usage phase and Nostr seems to have a weak spot here”
  • Source: https://karnage.npub.pro/post/1711761836895/ (“The State of Nostr Clients” by karnage)
  • Date: March 30, 2024
  • Context: No triggers to bring users back, related to discovery
  • Category: Discovery / Retention

3. ONBOARDING & FIRST-RUN EXPERIENCE

Finding 3.1: Unknown Recommendations Add Confusion

  • Quote: “Unknown people recommendations could add to confusion during onboarding – it’s better to present well known accounts or publications (e.g. news feeds)”
  • Source: https://nostrdesign.org/docs/how-to/onboarding/ (Nostr Design onboarding guidelines)
  • Date: 2024
  • Context: Design recommendation for solving cold start
  • Category: Discovery / Onboarding

Finding 3.2: Progressive Disclosure & Content Discovery Priority

  • Quote: “The primary recommendation is to use the progressive disclosure design principle, which emphasizes step-by-step discovery of essential information instead of showing everything at once. The goal is to minimize information disclosed to users to avoid overwhelming them. Key areas to review include onboarding, navigation, content and user discovery, search, profile, settings, and other UI”
  • Source: https://nostrdesign.org/ (Nostr Design guidelines)
  • Date: 2024
  • Context: Recommended approach for onboarding to improve discovery. Design community prioritizes content and user discovery as a key area.
  • Category: Discovery / Onboarding

4. SOLUTIONS & INNOVATIONS (2024-2025)

Finding 4.1: Primal 2.0 Feed Marketplace

  • Quote: “Primal 2.0 was announced by miljan, founder and CEO of Primal, after the team worked for many months to reach this milestone. Primal now offers a much more comprehensive view of Nostr on its web and mobile apps, with the following additions: a Reads tab, an Explore tab, a Feed Marketplace, comprehensive Advanced Search options, and multiple performance improvements.”
  • Source: https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/primal-v2-0/
  • Date: November 21, 2024
  • Context: Major discovery innovation launched. The Reads tab allows users to explore the latest Nostr-native long-form content via multiple feeds, including Nostr Reads, Bitcoin Reads, Philosophy Reads, News Reads, and a variety of other custom feeds available on the Feed Marketplace.
  • Category: Discovery / Solution

Finding 4.2: Nstart Onboarding Wizard

  • Quote: “Nstart aims to simplify onboarding for new users to the Nostr protocol with an easy-to-use wizard that provides helpful hints about the protocol and exclusive features… Auto follow the contacts list of some old and trusted Nostr users”
  • Source: https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/nstart-nostr-onboarding-wizard/
  • Date: January 2025
  • Context: Solves cold start by auto-following curated lists
  • Category: Discovery / Solution / Onboarding

Finding 4.3: Spam Attack and Mitigation Efforts

  • Quote: “Nostr was hit with approximately 500,000 daily spam messages in mid-February, consisting of ads for spam services, scams, and NSFW content. As a result of its ability to quickly and discreetly create accounts and publish posts to relays, Nostr can propagate spam much easier if left unchecked.”
  • Source: https://spam.nostr.band/
  • Date: February 2024
  • Context: Global feed usability severely impacted by spam. Led to development of spam filtering approaches including Web of Trust filtering and the Purgatory anti-spam pipeline (September 2024).
  • Category: Feed quality / Problem & Solution

SUMMARY OF KEY THEMES

Empty Feed / Cold Start Problems

  1. Retention crisis: 30-day retention trends to 0% for new cohorts (nostr.band, Oct 2024)
  2. DAU stagnation: ~10-12K daily active users (Oct 2024), ~17K (March 2025) — effectively flat for 18+ months despite viral spikes and client improvements
  3. Content scarcity: Primary reason people don’t stick around (karnage, March 2024)
  4. Chicken-egg problem: Need users for content, need content for users (karnage, March 2024)

Discovery Mechanism Problems

  1. No external growth loops: No email invites or viral mechanisms (karnage, March 2024)
  2. No tag notifications: Users miss when they’re mentioned (karnage, March 2024)
  3. Weak habit formation: No triggers to bring users back to app (karnage, March 2024)

Solutions Emerging (2024-2025)

  1. Primal 2.0 Feed Marketplace (Nov 2024): Explore tab, advanced search, curated feeds (Reads, Bitcoin, Philosophy, News)
  2. Nstart onboarding wizard (Jan 2025): Auto-follow trusted users, email backup, simplified key management
  3. Spam mitigation (Feb-Sep 2024): Response to 500K daily spam attack with Web of Trust filtering and Purgatory pipeline
  4. Nostr Design guidelines: Prioritizes progressive disclosure and content/user discovery in onboarding recommendations

2025 Updates

Design Community Acknowledgment

  1. Nostr Design: Prioritizes “content and user discovery” as key areas for improvement
  2. karnage: “The State of Nostr Clients” report documenting UX gaps and retention failures
  3. Progressive disclosure: Recommended principle to avoid overwhelming users during onboarding

KEY QUOTES FOR PATTERN 2 (CONTENT DISCOVERY)

On the retention crisis:

“According to nostr.band, retention of trusted users 30 days after signups trends to 0 for recent cohorts”

On content quality:

“Traditional apps win simply by having much better content selection - you get to see a variety of interesting things that Nostr simply can’t match”

On the cold start problem:

“Nostr is lacking in content, which could be the primary reason people are not sticking around after trying it”

On the chicken-egg problem:

“Nostr suffers from the chicken/egg problem where new users are needed to generate more content, and more content is needed to retain new users”

On no growth loops:

“Nostr does not seem to have any external growth loops, such as the ability to invite people by email with a single click”

On onboarding recommendations:

“Unknown people recommendations could add to confusion during onboarding – it’s better to present well known accounts or publications”

Research completed: November 7, 2025 Cleaned: November 8, 2025 Methodology: Removed all findings without verifiable URLs. Consolidated findings from the same source where appropriate. Restored key verified findings that were initially removed. Total findings with verified sources: 11 findings from 6 distinct sources

Last updated on
Content Discovery: Mainstream Platform Lessons