on today's Farcaster dev call @dwr.eth repeatedly stated that the #1 priority is to improve the quality of content on the network

I think he's wrong. Let me tell you why.

(disclosure: I told Dan i was going to write this. i hope it spurs some  debate)

the #1 most important priority is for Farcaster to become more onchain

"quality content" already exists in other places and there's no reason or benefit for it to come to Farcaster unless there's some uniquely onchain elements that vastly improve it

and tbh most of the content that gets lots of engagement on CT is polarizing debates that the FC community hates

the world doesn't need another place to yap about the NBA; it does need better ways to wager, play fantasy games, get access to bts content

the world doesn't need another place to yap about what you cooked;
the world does need more ways for foodies to get rewarded for sharing great recipes 

the way to win is by using onchain to change the paradigm and lure people in with the benefits as they emerge

many people took my comments to believe that i'm anti content and pro financial incentives; that is not the case

my point is that financial incentives -- and especially uniquely onchain ones -- are the key to getting high quality content on farcaster

nearly every youtube video you enjoy is on youtube because of financial incentives; same for tiktoks, same for reels

the best frames on farcaster have been built by people motivated by creating frames to advance their onchain business goals; quality frames are content

polymarket is onchain and it's quality content

to be clear: i strongly believe that the key to farcaster's future is unique and high quality content and i even stronger believe that onchain is the key to unlocking it

Has there ever been a new content platform that “won” and got its initially foothold by incentivizing UGC?

weird internet kid. helping Creators with /seemore. yapping on /okbanger. curating in /creators and /cameron. dev + veteran + HBS. 
seemore.tv/cameron 🫡

History is irrelevant. The biggest wins in startups/vc are the contrarian bets. Crypto/onchain is one giant contrarian bet on the status quo.

Don’t really agree here 

It’s true that 1000X startup bets are contrarian, but usually they’re contrarian about a specific thing that’s counterintuitive bc it hasn’t been done before

Airbnb bet that people would sleep in a stranger’s house, not that people won’t sleep inside buildings anymore

Not saying that it can’t work ever, but we have already plenty of examples of places that financially incentivize content (especially in crypto, but also w google + SEO in a roundabout way) and it turns out that it’s much much easier to churn out high quantities of slop content that game the incentive than it is to make genuinely good content - so there’s gotta be some new, really thoughtful way of implementing that if it has a chance of working