Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
In the next few months, the Farcaster protocol will have the most meaningful increase in DAU decentralization since we started. Base will be adding a Farcaster-powered feed to Coinbase Wallet—an app that has millions of existing users and wallets with balances. They will have a paths for both existing users and new users to onboard to Farcaster, i.e. creating FIDs. That's a meaningful, tangible step toward increasing decentralization on the protocol. So if you're claiming that we're making changes to limit client competition, you are, in fact, factually incorrect (both in what we are working on at the protocol level as well the likely outcome after CB's launch).
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Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Our original thesis was incorrect: a decentralized permissionless protocol would allow other clients to grow users for the protocol. This evolved into product-led protocol development (see blog post). And even that has fallen short on the most important thing developers want: daily active users and user growth. Updated version of this philosophy: 1. Make the underlying data and APIs as open as possible 2. Ensure that accounts / identities are portable and sovereign 3. Build an opinionated, high-quality client that is relentlessly focused on user growth. There will be reasonable criticism early on "how can I trust you won't stop building the protocol", but time and consistent shipping on protocol promises will earn trust (and assuming 1 and 2 actually work). 4. At some sufficient scale—not sooner than 10M+ DAU at the protocol—work on further decentralizing the protocol / hardening it from capture. And because you have a big client, you can do that. https://danromero.org/product-led-protocols.html
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Jonny Mack
@nonlinear.eth
#4 is delusional. at that scale organizational incentives are too powerful to justify working on anything other than maintaining centralized control and capturing value. no high growth enterprise will risk losing the goose that lays golden eggs
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Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Varun and I have board voting control. Buck stops with us. You either trust that we are building a protocol or you don't.
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Jonny Mack
@nonlinear.eth
great point. as long as that remains true, i have high trust and believe you and v will do what you say. i also know organizations can take on a life of their own, and evolve in ways counter to the intentions of the founders the great thing about protocols—and why i'm a strong proponent of them on day 1 instead of open APIs—is that they don't require trust
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Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Plenty of examples of centralized decision making in otherwise decentralized protocols Decentralization only effective when there are multiple at-scale clients / stakeholders. Base joining Farcaster is increasing that.
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sand.base.eth
@sandman
It’s the don’t be evil vs can’t be evil. During early days, google was also don’t be evil. Founders also had the most control. But at some point, when you’re raising a new round, it’ll be either give up control or tell 60% of your employees goodbye + slow down development. Most protocols don’t need decentralisation. Social network protocol builders don’t need decentralisation either. But we definitely need trustlessness. How can you make something trustless? By building it in a way it can be forked. If you and V betray our trust (I believe that you won’t, I’ve grown to like you more and more) we, the community, should have a way to fork Farcaster to build it ourselves. Thats what the community should demand for you guys in exchange for our usage of the Farcaster protocol.
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