Cameron Armstrong on Warpcast

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Cameron Armstrong

It’s pretty incredible how good people are at sniffing out resource scarcity and “status” markers People absolutely speedrunning the: “whoa Farcaster is pretty cool” ⬇️ “wait why don’t I have an active badge” ⬇️ “kill Dan and everyone he puts on the auto-follow list” cycle rn

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alex 🎩 pfp

@proxystudio.eth

could just kill the auto-follow list instead! good critique from @miasoarez on X

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Cameron Armstrong

idk mia, but her memes seem funny and there's prob a reason it was posted on X instead of here. That said, I generally think this misses the mark in terms of where the conditions for growth came from in the first place and is fairly unhelpful w its proposed solutions. (more to follow)

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artlu 🎩 pfp

I said this in another thread, but it's an unhealthy sign that ppl feel like they have to pull punches out of self-interest, and criticize out-of-FC or with newly created anon accounts. Really eager to hear and discuss your proposed solutions!

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Cameron Armstrong

I think there's 2 related, but entirely separate anxieties that people conflate. 1. Some people explicitly think @dwr.eth will crush them if they criticize Farcaster on Farcaster. I've been here for 2 years and have never seen this happen (to my recollection) (more to follow)

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Cameron Armstrong

Dan will absolutely RESPOND to criticism with a cutting, but thoughtful question focused on the specific issue getting complained about - usually something like "what would you tangibly do differently in the same situation?" and I respect the fuck out of that.

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Cameron Armstrong

People rarely respond well to that bc they usually realize they don't have a better answer, but sometimes people respond w a great solve and the app integrates it! That's v cool Dan will nerf folks that violate norms and this is an admitted moving target. Compromise is never clean and all lindy systems are emergent.

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Cameron Armstrong

2. Some people think if they cast criticism they'll be crushed by other Farcasters or the algo If you cast something people disagree w here, they will tell you in a (usually) thoughtful way This is an emphatically WEIRD thing to experience when the internet and its people have default ignored everywhere else you post

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Cameron Armstrong

It might feel like getting attacked, but it isn't (most of the time) and the signal loss via text communication makes it much more likely for someone to respond w some extra anxiety when someone disagrees with them in public (esp if it's a european responding w their characteristically jarring bluntness - love y'all)

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Cameron Armstrong

The algo doesn't deprioritize FC critiques (afaik), but a passing Caster is much less likely to engage with a negative Farcaster take on average (especially if its twitter-angry-coded) bc many of us are generally happy being default thoughtfully optimistic.

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Cameron Armstrong

That's the community vibe and once you add in a strong dash of "number go up" energy it's pretty obvious how an impartial algo feels partial when it's really a content/audience fit issue. We don't get to choose what people within a community, we just get to discover it through repeated content experiments.

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Cameron Armstrong

Anyway - @artlu I think people combine these two "uh oh" feelings into one when it's really a problem of 1. Farcaster is a new place w new vibes so old growth hacks don't work the same and learning is painful/more work for people 2. Dan feels big and scary, but is just aggressively pragmatic (maybe to a fault)

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alex 🎩 pfp

@proxystudio.eth

I actually think its less a matter of how Dan responds to critique or questions, and more a matter of who Dan listens to for client features, and norm enforcement. A small clique of high follow, long time users have an outsized influence. I feel zero anxiety criticizing Warpcast, Farcaster, the culture, whatever

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@proxystudio.eth

but I as a new user without a large following, speaking against essentially institutionalized wisdom about the network, those critiques are certainly not considered with equal weight. Here's a simple question: does farcaster have higher signal, less noise than X? That has not been my experience a month in

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artlu 🎩 pfp

do you think your critiques should be considered with equal weight? I don't. That's not to say they're not valued. I actually think they're *more* valuable in one sense: fresh eyes, unburdened with sunk-cost fallacy. But in another sense, a product manager should juggle old+new users' concerns unequally.

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@proxystudio.eth

all critiques should be considered on the basis of the argument itself. In a month I was able to cast my way the most active tier of users, and it wasn't hard. Is a lower FID that never casts a more valuable user? I don't think so. FC should engage with new users even about a culture it wants to guard to some degree

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Cameron Armstrong

On a practical level, there's just gotta be some sort of filter for Dan and V. They weigh retained users in line w YC wisdom of 10 users who LOVE your product that said, Dan and V regularly use this kind of thread to gauge community vibes. Is there something diff you'd prefer? https://warpcast.com/dwr.eth/0x28ab1dd2

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alex 🎩 pfp

@proxystudio.eth

I actually wonder if focusing on what annoys current users might not be a great way of making client decisions that will onboard new users. Its useful data, but not the whole story. being reactive to user complaints has resulted in things like removing reply boosting, which I think was a big mistake.

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