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.

I like the model where people can sponsor others to join.

Maybe it would be fun to even double down on that and users who get sponsored give like 10% of their warps to the one who sponsored them. Then people have incentive to bring their more productive friends to the platform, and encourage them to post.

I think this even works with warps in their current muggle points state, though ERC20 would be nice some day. Even a centrally operated ERC20.