149 – The Bat Signal Virus: Ridestr and Drivestr with Stirling Forge

In this episode, Avi talks with Stirling Forge about building a decentralized rideshare alternative on Nostr, sparked by the brutal economics of driving for Uber and Lyft today.

Stirling shares his background: former weather forecaster turned rideshare driver who stacked sats hard when payouts were better, then watched driver take-home shrink dramatically in recent years (with platforms extracting a much bigger share).

From there, the episode dives into his open-source project: Ridestr (rider) and Drivestr (driver), a peer-to-peer rideshare flow that uses Nostr as the communication layer, does routing and fare calculation locally on-device, and aims to keep privacy tighter (drivers share approximate location; riders avoid broadcasting location by default).

A big chunk is the “how does this not die to network effects?” question, and Stirling’s answer is the episode’s secret sauce: Road Flare, a “bat-signal” mode for repeat rides. Riders scan a driver QR once, save them to a favorites list, and later ping their personal micro-network of trusted drivers first, reducing signup friction and sidestepping the classic chicken-and-egg problem.

Links

• Stirling on nostr (https://primal.net/stirling)

• Ridestr Video 1 (https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqs0e3ng8fxcwyxf54g5vgpadvx5r39q7ln85j8czshmxl664r4sfqcpd0phd) | Ridestr Video 2 (https://primal.net/e/nevent1qqsqgklt7gv03q5s6emmau8cmwq4wax54ja9u5ke38che8aqtupdm4gemn9dg)

• Ridestr GitHub page (https://github.com/variablefate/ridestr)

• Avi's New Book – July 18 (https://www.amazon.com/July-18-Avi-Burra/dp/B0G12PPTCM)

• Finding Home Episode 3 – Paraguay (https://indeehub.studio/film/finding-home/season/1/episode/3) [IndeeHub Code: PIONEER21 ]

• Avi's First Book – 24 (2nd Edition) (https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1%5D(https://www.amazon.com/24-Avi-Burra/dp/B0CN9NRNNB/ref=sr11?crid=27RW9P8JQ4YMV&keywords=avi+burra+24&qid=1700327391&sprefix=avi+burra+24%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1)