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

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

This process definitely needs some streamlining, and sponsored users shouldn't need to still provide payment card info etc. People who produce good content for the platform should easily be able to pay for the platform with the warps they earn.

Yes, but last I checked (when I tried to get a handful of friends in) it was still requiring payment card info to register, which was a non-starter for them. I think some people get sketched out when being forced to add payment info even though no payment is required.