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

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.

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.

Pi-chi.eth (she/her) Artist /animeoutcasts
Hosting: /sakura /kyoto /momiji  /anime-manga /farcasterunion

https://portrait.so/pichi

I have found depending on channels with the minimal scope|range that I have to reach people with the current algorithm in place I find
A: in some channels, I get more activity and connection to others
B: there are still times when “naked casting” -IE following|homefeed I get no responses whatsoever because I am not fed through a channel
C: even though I know you stated numerous times channels don’t boost anymore and some channels there’s no engagement as well
D: could also be in lieu of the times that I’m casting and when people actually are online and engaging however that’s hard to tell and I know that @pichi has done studies that if you don’t get X amount of likes during a certain point of time you can get lost to the algorithm altogether

has the team put any thought into channels as onchain entities

fid/username markets will exist (because it’s possible). feels like channels ought to be similarly manageable

feels like an opportunity. if you can incentivise people to run amazing channels and cultivate strong communities I think it would pay off long term

do you think they will make sense at scale though, like 10m+ DAUs?

Striking the balance between community and utility is the real challenge.

Never thought of channels as tags. I’ve always seen them more like subreddits. But if people are using them as tags, maybe that's a missing feature?

But aren't users who want to build channels more valuable than other users generally speaking? Or have there not been many of these types of users attracted so far?
I would prefer to browse highly curated channels vs an open/algorithm feed - or have the feed be composed of highly curated channels (at least in part).

Adds friction to posting too. Sometimes I just feel like I have to choose a random channel to get more reach

The Yellow Collective on Base

This is really a tough nut to sort.
For new comers, like you mention I don't think Channels is a driving source or a "pull" that sells the product to them. The notion itself is pretty alien to most new users and does get overlooked. (Just my recent observations from a new Jpn user I saw).  People in Reddit would probably understand it, as the framework is created around subreddits.

That being said, when channels are pointed towards projects or particular cultural purposes, it starts to make sense. I'm looking at Firstdrafts, confessions, Degen, music types etc where the location and culture intertwine and is a 'quick fix' to find. A cozy room of sorts.

Hash tags just don't have the same atmosphere.