removing the cost for real users to join and contribute to the network is an existential problem farcaster needs to solve

most people don't pay for social media - doesn't matter if it's $1 or $10 - it's not something they're used to

this is also an existential problem for apps building on farcaster

If you remove cost, you have infinite spam.

If you gate sign ups, it's not permissionless.

Warpcast has tried a couple of large, reasonably scaled experiments with free sign ups and the long term retention rate is basically 0.

and so alas we're stuck with 250k+ automated bot accounts willing to pay the $5 fee to use warpcast in order to get an airdrop

when the average person who uses web2 social networks as legitimate social networks or media platforms will say "wtf $5, no way" (including two of my siblings)

don't envy you

/ted | exploring the onchain frontier | surfing @ venice, ca | eating @ gjusta / gjelina

People not willing to pay $5 are unlikely to retain. So don't optimize the UX for these people right now. 

If we 10-100X users, then a read-only sign up mode might make more sense. More juice to squeeze focusing on people willing to pay right now.

I don’t like gimmicks and am not suggesting you raise fees per se, yet I wonder about Black Friday deals etc.

Imagine FC costs 19.99/yr or only 4.99 for the month of November.  Wonder if a “sale” would get folks to try it out?

Also wonder about price per year across different countries.  5 in the US much different than some developing countries.

What are summer numbers looking like?  Besides some high profile new folks, o haven’t come across many new accounts recently?