Vision
Gozzip is a decentralized social network protocol. It should feel like Twitter from the user's perspective — fast, simple, no friction — while being sovereign, encrypted, and decentralized underneath.
UX Principle
The user never thinks about:
- Which device signed an event
- How device keys relate to their identity
- How their feed is being indexed
- Where their data is stored
- How encryption works
Everything just works: multi-device, direct messages, encrypted content, public feeds, fast timelines, good UI. The technical complexity is real but entirely hidden. If a feature requires the user to understand cryptography, the design is wrong.
Sovereignty Without Burden
Users own their identity and their social graph. But sovereignty doesn't mean work. The protocol handles:
- Multi-device sync automatically (fork-and-reconcile)
- Follow indexing in the background
- Key management transparently
- Light/full node switching based on device capability
- Data storage via reciprocal WoT pacts (no relay dependency)
- Incentives are emergent — reliable storage and good curation earn wider reach, no tokens or subscriptions. See ADR 009.
The user opens the app and sees their feed. That's it.
Community Parallel
The protocol's design mirrors human social dynamics. Each protocol role maps to an observable pattern in how communities form, maintain relationships, and propagate information.
| Persona | Protocol Role | Human Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Keeper | Full node pact partner | Inner circle — the friends who remember everything |
| Witness | Light node pact partner | Extended circle — they know what you've been up to recently |
| Guardian | Bootstrap sponsor | Community patron — vouches for newcomers they don't personally know |
| Seedling | Bootstrapping newcomer | New arrival — growing into the community with initial support |
| Herald | Relay operator | Town crier — curates and distributes information beyond the local circle |
For detailed definitions, see the Glossary. For the full structural analysis, see the protocol paper §2.
Why Not Just Nostr?
Nostr gets identity and censorship-resistance right. But:
- No native multi-device — sharing a private key across devices is the current norm
- No user sovereignty over indexing or storage — fully relay-dependent
- No efficient light node sync
- Follow-as-commitment model doesn't exist — no incentive to curate
Gozzip builds a thin layer on top of Nostr's proven primitives to solve these gaps without breaking compatibility.