Dan Romero on Warpcast

Dan Romero pfp

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.

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Stephan pfp

You can have both via fee waiving programs

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Joelle LB pfp

why do you feel free sign ups failed? Do you think engagement could be a reason why people gave up?

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Ox.crypto pfp

Soo the fee/cost is mainly to evade spam??

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Duraa pfp

Ok. Q. Can we pay with crypto before the year end?

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Garrett pfp

why not empower power users to invite their friends? basically decentralize what you were doing in the early days and make it a little bit more scalable?

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Alex Loukissas 🍉 pfp

Alex Loukissas 🍉

Have you folks considered the approach that lobste.rs has with invites that carry weight?

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ted (not lasso) pfp

ted (not lasso)

and so alas we're stuck with 250k+ automated bot accounts willing to pay the $5 fee to use warpcast in order to get an airdrop when the average person who uses web2 social networks as legitimate social networks or media platforms will say "wtf $5, no way" (including two of my siblings) don't envy you

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Maretus pfp

I think people are beginning to realize that 'free' isn't really 'free' anyway. You're just getting mined for your data and advertised to like a pig. I'd much rather pay for this than have that for 'free.

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Commstark 🎩🫂 pfp

Commstark 🎩🫂

we also have to realize that running apps isn’t free if we don’t explicitly pay, the money will come from implicit means (data harvesting, ads…) which will make us Twauter or worse **this cast brought to you by DEGEN! Buy Degen be a Degen**

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Breck Yunits pfp

Warpcast gift cards?

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richie is foraging pfp

richie is foraging

fwiw i signed someone up yesterday who is not a crypto person at all and he didn't even blink at the $5 fee

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Joe Toledano pfp

Are there any particular required signup credentials that are more effective at filtering spam, or is it all sort of negligible? (ie: phone numbers, emails, etc.)

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shazow pfp

Some other ideas in case you're looking for some: Bond that is slashable by bad behaviour (especially if someone else can put up a bond for your invite). I imagine something like $25 USDC locked up on behalf of some FID, things like too many reported casts or channel bans burns $5 (for example, could imagine more nuances here?). Put the bond in AAVE or similar and have it earn yield for the treasury, so there is still some revenue.

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Gwynne Michele pfp

@thecurioushermit

I didn't mind the fee at all. IDK that I would have spent as much time figuring this place out if I hadn't paid for it. It was a modest fee, but I'm still on a tight enough budget even modest is a stretch sometimes. It's paid itself back many times over in just the few weeks I've been here.

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JC🎩 pfp

@jonathancolton

It’s not about the friction of the sign-up cost. It’s about the friction of attracting the wrong users. This platform is not ready for mass adoption yet. Everyone who came, paid, and stayed is an "Innovator." The "early adopters" came and left. The good news is tens of millions of Innovators own crypto, use social media, and are native English speakers or ESL (English as a second language). There are also Japanese, Korean and Spanish native speakers using WC/FC in native language communities.

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Gambino pfp

@greatgambino.eth

I had absolutely no problem paying 5 dollars to use warpcast lol not a big deal. I’ve made way more than that being here

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Dean Pierce 👨‍💻🌎🌍 pfp

Dean Pierce 👨‍💻🌎🌍

@deanpierce.eth

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.

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Nico🦊 pfp

The issue for me is not the price but the fact that you have to pay it by using the banking system.

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Andrei O. pfp

I've seen many times a lot of spam in cost-only environments too, I mean arguably on Blockchains there is the most amount of spam, we all have hundreds of spam NFTs in the wallet. Cost can be a barrier to spam when there's no cost-benefit for the spammer, but making a cost that high is a death sentence for any social network. No cost seems the best approach to social networks, as many people feel that their participation is enough of a cost. If that participation can have any extractable value it is the job of the social network, not the user.

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