Channels aren’t failing because people don’t want to build or manage communities. They’re failing because Warpcast never gave channel owners and mods the right tools and features. On top of that, Warpcast is obsessed with controlling the distribution of attention instead of letting things grow organically. The average user treats channels like tags because that’s exactly how they were designed to function at the protocol level. Warpcast neglected channels for the longest time while prioritizing things like trending tokens, which no one asked for.

Interesting channel data in this article by @sidshekhar. I believe the network is increasingly favoring the path of crypto-native sub-communities, which means there's much work ahead if we hope to encourage people who are new to crypto to consider launching communities on Farcaster.

Channels are what kept me here too. In theory, they fit really well with a decentralized protocol, but no garden can grow without being watered.

I also felt that focusing solely on a crypto-native user base was a mistake, but Warpcast doubled down on it, even as users were clearly asking for something different

What are you afraid of:
https://www.musicto.com/hi-farcaster-what-are-you-afraid-of-why/

Channels are what kept me here too. In theory, they fit really well with a decentralized protocol, but no garden can grow without being watered.

I also felt that focusing solely on a crypto-native user base was a mistake, but Warpcast doubled down on it, even as users were clearly asking for something different

https://warpcast.com/ghostlinkz.eth/0x3d2681ab

Channels are how I found my footing on Warpcast - without them I’d have left long ago.  I’m not the typical web3 user - have no interest in crypto speculation - not building software or apps - but I do believe in open ledger / decentralized social.  I’m pretty sure there’s way more people like me not yet Onchain - channels are the way in - but it seems we’re not a target audience yet.

channeling

Graphic Designer, Illustrator, 3D Voxel Artist, and music enthusiast /audiophile
https://linktr.ee/andreaboi

It’s been so long that I barely even remember that, but it does seem like a more useful feature than trending tokens. I think we can all agree that Warpcast never really prioritized helping users discover new channels. They were too busy building tools like sending tweets to Farcaster from users that weren’t even down to participate on here. The last thing I remember they added for channels was streaks, and that’s probably one of the most useless features. 

I had even planned to start a newsletter /channeling to help with channel discovery and data, but im glad I didn’t follow through, because it was clear to me that Warpcast was never serious about competing with Discord or Reddit when it came to communities. I still went ahead and built a channel-based client, tunecaster.xyz which I’ll have to either rebuild or shut down if channels end up being deprecated

True. Do you remember when you used to get notifications about new channels? I guess a lot of people followed them because of that.

Community Builder. I'm wandering and wondering. Interested in decentralized, cool & creative stuff. Worked on a DAO for 5 years and looking for something new.

Agree that this is a good question. Thanks for bringing it up.

I'm one of those few people who actually does want to build and manage communities here. I've co-founded and stewarded two on FC in the past year: one in a private group chat, and one in a public channel. Both have gone well and have a core group of casters who love them, but they're also in limbo -- for two reasons:

1) lack of a sustainable economic model to support the time and labor required to bootstrap, and
2) no customizable spaces for us to carry on long-form discussions at our own (slow) pace.

Good moderation is a job just like any other, and it requires a significant time commitment (as Dan acknowledges). Until we have good options for the two issues above, the two communities I mentioned will remain in limbo, since the mods/co-founders have to turn the bulk of our attention to paid work elsewhere.

Agreed that the problem isn't unwillingness to do the work of building channels, but a lack of the right tools (and incentives).

I wrote about the situation for my channels/communities in another thread:

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

I don’t think the Warpcast team fully acknowledges how much time and effort some of us have already invested. It’s surprising they never recognized that incentivizing and rewarding channel operators would be a good idea. Either they don’t value the work being done, or they genuinely believe that none of the operators are deserving - that we don’t have “1% expert knowledge” in our topics. Honestly, it just feels insulting. I’m tired of sugarcoating the reality just to fit their narrative

Agreed that the problem isn't unwillingness to do the work of building channels, but a lack of the right tools (and incentives).

I wrote about the situation for my channels/communities in another thread:

https://warpcast.com/danicaswanson/0x8dcd3d4a

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

https://portrait.so/pichi