Ethereum is down. Vitalik is calling out L2s for not decentralizing fast enough. Crypto is de-coupling from other risky assets during Rektember. And then, to add insult injury, this.
Tough times create strong women and men...
Before I dissect Dan's reaction and the networks's responses to that, I want to respond to Alemac's question:
What are we doing wrong?
NOTHING: nature is about growth and growth does not always happens in lockstep; different pace, different direction etc. If you take a systemic view of life, then you can accept that Farcaster, too, has seasons with different growth vectors.
Now, the cast below is what got one of the most interesting debate going on FC since I joined 9 months ago.
Read the replies of this cast as they cover many important aspects of our tough situation. I hope this article will be a contribution to our growing stack of interesting content.
Zooming out: what are we anyway?
This is the tagline on farcaster dot xyz on mobile (no mentioning of this on my web browser, which doesn't help attract interesting people imho - and tbh I have already lost a few while trying)
If Farcaster wants to be a social network, then it's about interesting people first. Why? Because there is obviously more to social networking than creating content. If you want interesting content first, then FC should label itself social media platform. Hence, the title of this blog article is intentionally in this order, and not the other way round:
Interesting people, Interesting content
I admit that this is a paradox: of course we want to see interesting content in our feeds and channels. When I joined I was attracted by interesting content from the likes of Binji, Jesse, Linda, Christin, Cooper and ted, and over time I made up my mind wether they are interesting people worth more of my attention. However, the following juxtaposition leads to dramatically different outcomes as the first two decades of social media have painfully proven.
Interesting people create interesting content from their authentic self w/o worrying too much about how it is perceived. Optimising for them can create an infinite game.
Uninteresting people create interesting content from their idealised self to appear more interesting than they are, or worse, to game the system. Optimising for them typically leads to Moloch, the race to the bottom.
The first is sustainable, the second is not. The first is crucial if Farcaster wants to thrive long-term, the second will lead to an accelerating burn rate of Merkle until they run out of money and make poorer and poorer choices reach. To me this cross-road is the existential question for Farcaster, especially when 99% of profiles on any network are bots creating deep fakes.
The first also is based on a create-AND-earn model, the second is based on a create-TO-earn model. The latter was a short-lived phenomenon in the last cycle in form of Axie Infinity et al.
Consumers, Creators, Engagoors & Farmers
This week, Snicker Doodles published their illuminating State of Farcaster 2024 report. Among the many intriguing data points, I'd like to pull this one out:
https://snickerdoodle.com/reports/farcaster-2024
Idk but the overall ratio between these roles we play in the game seems ok - wdyt?
Interestingly, one big difference between (non) and power badge holders is the ratio of engaging over creating. As a holder, I must admit that I am first here to (co-)create, then to engage, then to consume, and last to farm (I never quite seem to fit into any scene:-) Hence, I got marginally triggered by ted's cast on the ratio between quote-casting and replying as a function of the size of your ego. Marginally, bc I am aware of my ego and then again this dichotomy lacks nuance, which the many replies pointed out.
BTW: the pinnacle of interesting content this week was the dune dashboard by Ryan J. Shaw in response to her cast. Fucking genius and of course a bit of a joke. This is what they just don't make in other social networks afaik!
Ok, that was a little tangent, which you may or may not perceive as interesting content. I personally like tangents as they can reveal how things are connected.
Farmoors
Anyway, back to the graphic above, and let's dive into farming, the quintessential x-to-earn model in crypto: many have casted about the influx of next gen bots on Farcaster that, whilst replying with empathic whole sentences that make sense to you and might boost some vanity metrics, are nevertheless bots. Many are assumedly spawned in large-scale farms based in low-cost countries where this is a lucrative enough business model. Apt for people whose parents have most likely been farmers IRL. Good for them, bad for the whole. Why?
Whether it's farming for token airdrops, degen tips or moxie rewards - the interesting people I'd love to onboard to FC have a hyper-sensitive bullshit detector. They ask me what makes our cozy corner any different, and thus worth their attention.
For the first nine months here on FC I told them how smart, nice, and cool the people I surround myself with, and learn from are. I experience FC as the biggest, open and fluid incubator of ideas and accelerator of onchain experiments on Earth. People are happy for me, bc they can see the fire in my eyes and they know that I am always radically honest, so they assume that Dan, Jesse, Binji, Cooper, ChrisCoCreates, Pentacle, Know, Maretus and many others are: smart, kind and cool.
Channels
The thing is, the most interesting people in my IRL (and Linkedin) network are not that interested in building businesses onchain - yet. They are interested in psychedelics, regeneration, social justice, better leadership, better organisations, personal growth and inner healing. They will be interested in sophisticated tooling for channels - mark my words. Why the confidence? I am not a crypto-native myself. I am a recovering Gen X with a background in organisation design, coaching and facilitating group processes; I see channels as breeding grounds for new forms of collaboration that can blend our professional and personal interests, and thus, create new organisational life forms that were indescribably to our forbears.
Uninteresting Content Space
Last week the interesting person humpty.eth casted interesting content in form of this ponder poll:
Interestingly, the response desktop grows from 25% to 35%-ish for OGs , popular casters and power badge holders. Being a power badge holder myself, I do most of my content creation and engagement on desktop/laptop whilst consuming mostly on mobile. I also spend most of my consuming time in channels, not on my general WC feed. Hypothesis:
Interesting content is often created on desktop and aimed for consumption in channels.
Both were not a priority in the past afaik. Now? I am not expecting complete revamp, but here is a little suggestion dear WC team. Look at the right side of my screen. I never use it except the thin search bar. It's a waste of space of expensive onscreen real estate.
My wish: be able to configure this space on the right with apps, composer actions, and analytics - anything that helps me to produce more interesting content. Please scrap the protocol client language, it is incomprehensible for the next cohort. We care about the words like user interface, and I want to also access ponder, buoy, events and tavern on the WC screen plus the latest my moxie earnings and TVL of all fan-tokens I hold that were launched by interesting people on Farcaster, many (if not all?) power badge holders. Let's circle back to that pbh's.
pb - or no pb: that is the question
Much has been said about the pros and cons of hiding them on WC. I'd like to add two cents:
Look back at the graphic way above: 5x more non power badge holders are on FC primarily for farming - it is crystal clear that you want more people who behave like power badge users; anything else is intellectual dishonesty by anyone!
Quality badges are important bc we don't know what great looks like until we see it. I have studied many badge holders and deducted my own path based on how I want to show up authentically - and I got the badge around the time when FC switched from needing to have 400 followers to power badges. I often hear that nowadays it has become a lot harder to reach this status. My question is: why does it have to be black and white? What if there was more nuance?
Behavioural Science
For most interesting people it is utterly demotivating to cast their interesting content into the void, which is what my partner ruthveda.eth repeatedly reports after she lost her briefly-held Power Badge (she doesn't cast every day and sometimes not even for a week e.g. when on retreats).
I recommend more nuance in the form of achieving PB Status on a scale from 1-100%
Study Gitcoin Passport which does that incentivising really well imo.
Imagine how many Ruth's would feel more motivated and and supported in becoming a Power badge Holder (invisible to WC, still relevant for FC and many apps, frames and clients on top of FC) if they knew how far they are into that road and when they'll be there...
Unless you already have one on the team, maybe FC could hire a dedicated behavioural psychologist or anthropologist?
I know that Dan wants to know who will join Farcaster bc of new interesting people like Naomi aka afrochicks, pichi or proxystudio - and why. Which brings me back to the OG reference in Brent's cast at the top of this article:
Many of those accounts became enshrined here as tastemakers.
That's true and normal. Just like in an organisation (or network) there are old-timers vs. new-timers. It seems (although some disagree) that the algo still favours newcomers and Moxie airdrop is a big testament to the unleveled playing field. My key question to anyone, whether OG or newbie, is this:
Is your content attracting net new interesting people?
I am embarking on this daunting journey myself soon as I will be onboarding people via my Blockchain for Beginners weekend seminar.
If I get them to sign-up on FC it's because they have rated my course as interesting content and hopefully consider me an interesting person worth following into Farcacsterland.
I will surely recommend them a staple of interesting people and then also tailor that list to each individual based on their specific wants for interesting content.
Interesting people, first.
I am a bridge builder first, and content creator second.
Thanks for your attention. If you have lasted this long, I consider you an interesting person that I would love to have a conversation with. Over to you...maybe start with some comments? What resonates? What am I getting wrong or miss?
