Lawson.fm
@lwsnbaker
Third-party apps in Web3 social are currently in a death spiral. Super 💀 - acquired by Farcaster Phaver 💀 - failed token launch; shut down; prior #1 Lens app Buttrfly 💀 - shut down; Top 5 Lens app Firefly App standing the test of time and frankly growing through this same time frame. But I'll be honest, if we are the only other significant 3rd party app, I'm not sure anything has changed. What's the point if the protocol team is building the dominant app? That's like Bitcoin core devs running the only wallet. Yes, there are other third-party apps but they are either ghost towns or growth is stalled*. I'll spare their names. *No Growth = No Investors to help you weather the storm.
3 replies
2 recasts
7 reactions
Ghostlinkz
@ghostlinkz.eth
> there are other third-party apps but they are either ghost towns or growth is stalled What do you think are the main reasons for this? What needs to change?
2 replies
0 recast
0 reaction
Lawson.fm
@lwsnbaker
There are a few problems for 3rd party apps vs social protocols. Feature Leadership. New protocol features drop first on protocol apps, then trickle down to 3rd party apps. Sometimes this breaks our apps. Sometimes it means we are flat footed. A more welcoming developer experience could help some but priorities and timelines will never truly align. Incentives. Protocol teams with dev co's have incentives to profit off the app layer (see uniswap app). Third-party apps have incentives to grow their user base and find ways to profit. This means third-party apps are incentivized to build their own growth features rather than push growth ideas down to the protocol level. This could change if there were protocol incentives for app builders. Right now Farcaster is eating all of the incentives through private equity rounds where a token approach would benefit the ecosystem as a whole.
1 reply
0 recast
2 reactions
Ghostlinkz
@ghostlinkz.eth
I think protocol incentives for app builders is a solid idea. Farcaster has already generated over $4 million in revenue from signup/storage fees dune.com/shoni_eth/farcaster-protocol But the bigger issue might be how these protocols are being developed, with more focus on the "product first, protocol second" approach. I haven’t seen many third-party apps in the Bluesky or Farcaster ecosystems show promising growth. I think it boils down to two things: 1) the protocols feel captured and 2) not enough quality content or users
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction
Lawson.fm
@lwsnbaker
Farcaster has done a solid job making money but it's a very web2 saas approach. Pay us annually for storage. No affiliate referral fee compensation model for signing up users (last I checked). For third-parties, this means we can't sign up a new user without getting the user to pay or sponsoring the user signups Firelfy has spend $1000's of dollars on Farcaster signups. This is the exact opposite dynamic of Ethereum or Defi. Ethereum app builders make money with their protocols and because they all own ETH. App builders on Defi make money by taking a cut of transactions and earning referral fees. Users are incentivized to pay transaction fees because the entire system is premise is financial.
1 reply
0 recast
1 reaction