Ghostlinkz on Warpcast

Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

Thoughtful criticism, backed by data, got some of us blackballed on Farcaster. I love the idea of a decentralized protocol, but when power and attention are concentrated within an opinionated client, decentralization doesn’t really exist in practice. And if everyone spends the majority of their time on a single client, can you truly call it a protocol?

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Dan Romero pfp

> And if everyone spends the majority of their time on a single client, can you truly call it a protocol? Base launching a Farcaster feed in CB Wallet will change this. https://warpcast.com/dwr.eth/0x3ea95b82

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

Love to see a well funded team taking a chance. But I didn’t join yesterday. There any many more dead clients. And the clients I use the most today (Recaster + Tunecaster) both depend on Neynar infrastructure which is a good or bad thing depending on how you want to look at it. Neynar isn’t fully independent from Merkle, I believe you are investors which can be a conflict.

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Dan Romero pfp

> Neynar isn’t fully independent from Merkle They are and that's a claim without evidence.

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

So Neynar can push changes to the protocol without your permission? And investment in Neynar means you have no influence?

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rish pfp

Dan has one of the smallest checks in the company and he invested in a company that wasn't even building FC infra. We were building something else at that time and he just wanted to support. If we were going to be influenced by investor checks, there are much larger investors to worry about.

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

Farcaster desperately needed Neynar. Many more ppl can build on here because of you. I’m grateful for that, but I’m just speaking facts here. I appreciate you stepping in to instil confidence, but if you or Merkle go offline right now, the users of the protocol will literally go on Twitter and tweet about how Farcaster is offline. That’s a problem

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rish pfp

how is that the same as "Neynar isn’t fully independent from Merkle, I believe you are investors which can be a conflict." doesn't make any sense

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

Ok so Merkle has no influence, all I have to do is take your word for it?

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rish pfp

you have influence, you message me all the time about things you want us to prioritize the claim you made: "Neynar isn’t fully independent from Merkle, I believe you are investors which can be a conflict." you keep saying other sentences that you think sound the same as that statement but they don't.

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

Where did you prove that my statements are not accurate? You basically said to trust you. The statement I made also includes “which can be a conflict”. So maybe I should have said “it’s possible that Neynar is influenced by Merkle”. See how you guys push back against things that don’t fit your narrative? You are picking at my word choice and ignoring the main points. I believe im speaking facts even though you are saying “trust me ghost, we do our own thing, no one at Merkle influences us” - this isn’t how we operate in crypto

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rish pfp

I'm sorry that is just a word salad. every customer and partner has influence over what we do so from that perspective, sure so does Merkle but that in no way suggests that their influence comes from a small check they wrote when we were literally building a different company. just saying random things and combining them in vague words doesn't make them true. if you can make a good argument on how they have _more_ influence than anyone else, I am happy to hear it. That is the claim you're making and then hiding it behind other statements. Unfortunately for your argument, they actually have less influence compared to our even our lowest tier customers and we 100% prioritize our customers more than anyone else. No one in the history of entrepreneurship has built a successful business listening to investors over customers and you are free to try your hand at it or talk to other founders to figure this out.

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

You seem to be saying a lot when your only point is "trust me". You also know that I do trust you, im a paying customer and a proven builder. All of this is invaluable feedback imo. I gain nothing from trying to make false statements. You focused on one thing I said even though I mentioned other important issues, and then you called all of it "word salad". This whole back and forth speaks volumes about the state of things here on Farcaster

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rish pfp

it only speaks to your ability of making specific incendiary claims without backing them up :) if making a strong claim, expect to be asked for evidence

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Ghostlinkz pfp

@ghostlinkz.eth

I guess you missed the part where I said I could have done a better job wording this "Neynar isn’t fully independent from Merkle, I believe you are investors which can be a conflict." It's a bit of a contradiction, since I first said "isn't independent" then said "can be a conflict" so my apologies for that. But I said a lot more than just that. Let me recap: - Can Neynar push changes to the protocol without Merkle permission? - There are many more dead clients than live clients - If everyone spends the majority of their time on a single client, can you truly call it a protocol without sounding silly? - If Merkle and Neynar hubs go offline right now, will users know that the protocol is still alive or will they run to Twitter and yell about Farcaster (not Warpcast) being offline?

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rish pfp

- no but that doesnt mean anything about neynar or any other company. Coinbase can't push changes to Farcaster protocol either and they are building a client. You are either speaking to Farcaster's current posture on decentralization or you are speaking to Neynar's independence but they are not measured on the same scale. They are just different topics. - so what? there are always more dead projects than live projects. making new things in the world is hard. there more dead Neynar experiments than live Neynar products. - depends on who you are but client diversity is also a different measurement from a 3rd party company's independence or influence or conflict. Again, just different things so gotta pick which point you are trying to make instead of conflate them. - depends on whether you are someone who likes to yell about things or trying to spin up a hub or connect to a public hub and check for yourself.

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