First Draft Club

Are Channels Still the Future of Farcaster? (🧵)

I used to think so. Now? Not so sure.

Back in April 2024, spam was everyone’s problem on Farcaster. Then the channel overhaul happened and shifted the spam burden to hosts. If your channel is full of spam, it’s on you: Gate better. Moderate harder. Ban faster. 

It’s exhausting and most channel hosts have ignored it or automated it, confusing new folks and aggravating old ones who can’t cast into channels freely. 

Fast forward to April 2025: spammers got smarter. The current model aggressively flags most users as low-value. 80% of casts are orphaned—no replies, no recasts, no likes. Worse, casting into channels doesn’t trigger spam labels, which flipped the whole dynamic and spammers gravitate to casting into some channels hoping for visibility.

Good thoughts. 

Challenge with channels is tension between community vs. tag.

Channels work well when they are communities. That requires a lot of time and effort. Few people want to spend the time building / managing a community.

Average user wants to use them as tags / discovery boost.

Misalignment of incentives. Partially our fault for pushing people to cast in them for a couple years.

Working on Farcaster and Warpcast. Longer thoughts at https://dwr.email

I think if people are still paying for channels, it means they want them as is. 
They are neither tags nor communities they are a Farcaster specific feature with a lot of room for customization.

Normie truned into degen in FC | I'm mostly JK | Host /venting /burrfrens | mod /impact /byegary

They are incredibly confusing for average users and don't drive growth, though.

They are one of the reasons I love Farcaster. Every channel is a cozy corner.  Tags don't give (me) that vibe! 
Projects create channels and I am motivated to create and engage in those cozy corners. 
Might just be me. I never was a social media person before FC.

Why do you think the concept is hard to understand?