"The user joins the community, and the community does a lot of the
heavy lifting."
href="https://njump.to/npub1wf4pufsucer5va8g9p0rj5dnhvfeh6d8w0g6eayaep5dhps6rsgs43dgh9">Franzap
&
href="https://njump.to/npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc">Gigi
take a walk in Oslo.
href="https://sovereignengineering.io/podcast/26-zapstore-w-franzap">Listen
on sovereignengineering.io
In this dialogue:
- How Zapstore grew out of the first Sovereign Engineering cohort in
Madeira, earlier experiments like
href="https://github.com/franzaps/zapthreads">ZapThreads, and
Franzap's frustration with closed mobile app stores - Why Ninite, app stacks, and
curated discovery mattered as much as the raw "permissionless app store"
idea - What it means to run Zapstore as a real marketplace: breaking the
chicken-and-egg problem by pre-populating supply, signing apps under the
Zapstore key, and gradually moving developers toward
self-publishing - Web-of-trust computation, trust providers, and why app distribution
raises the stakes far beyond regular social posting - Franzap's "credible exit" framing: sometimes you dial down
decentralization to improve UX, as long as users can still verify,
leave, and choose another community - ZSP, the Zapstore
publisher CLI, and how agents can already build and publish Android apps
without the developer even owning an Android phone - Device keys, encrypted preferences, onboarding trade-offs, and why
social features, comments, and zaps are a different problem from simply
installing an app - Why app lists are a privacy leak, how update infrastructure can turn
into a honeypot, and what it means to distribute software without
building a profiling machine - The operational pain behind a living app catalog: pre-releases, key
rotations, migrations, certificate mismatches, and endless edge
cases - Google's tightening sideloading and KYC rules, Apple's
developer-account maze, and why every new permissioned hurdle makes the
permissionless route more compelling - Why Zapstore may matter most for people at the edges: controversial
apps, developers outside the usual payment rails, and users who cannot
or will not pass through the official gates - What's next: default communities, reviews, malware checks, privacy
analysis, reproducibility, and smoother handoffs from indexed apps to
self-published releases
People mentioned:
-
href="https://njump.to/npub180cvv07tjdrrgpa0j7j7tmnyl2yr6yr7l8j4s3evf6u64th6gkwsyjh6w6">fiatjaf
(built an earlier Nostr-native commenting system that influenced
ZapThreads) - American HODL / Viper (example of agent-built, agent-published
Android apps) - DHH and PewDiePie (part of the closing Linux detour)
Projects & tech mentioned:
Recorded at
href="https://mempool.space/block/951851">951,851.
