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.

What about sponsoring people? For example, I wanted my brother to try my new game and he had to sign up and pay $5. What if I could send him a prepaid link where he doesn't need to pay (I would pay)?

Creator of /sands-of-sumaii - the Farcaster MMORPG | Game Designer at @game7

Hmm maybe I'm a dork, but that process isn't obvious to me.

Like how do I send warps to an account that hasn't been created yet?

You can invite him and pay for his sign up in warps.