I think about this a lot: we have to be careful not to let the rules of the old system dictate the requirements of the new system.

This reminds of a question asked of a British general in the early days of the Great War - what was necessary to win the war. His answer, “More hay for the horses!”, thinking a well-equipped cavalry was going to dominate the battlefield. We all know how that turned out.

As we build on #nostr, I am seeing more and more comments about needing #KYC, content moderation, etc. All very good old system requirements, but we need to be careful not to build these controls into the centre of the system. The biggest threat I see to developers and providers is an ‘enforced duty of care’ - you can do something and now we’re going to force you to do in the name of ‘protecting’ something or another.

I am by no means advising illegality, we just need to be aware that one party’s cool feature can become someone else’s threat vector.