First Draft Club

Are Channels Still the Future of Farcaster? (🧵)

I used to think so. Now? Not so sure.

Back in April 2024, spam was everyone’s problem on Farcaster. Then the channel overhaul happened and shifted the spam burden to hosts. If your channel is full of spam, it’s on you: Gate better. Moderate harder. Ban faster. 

It’s exhausting and most channel hosts have ignored it or automated it, confusing new folks and aggravating old ones who can’t cast into channels freely. 

Fast forward to April 2025: spammers got smarter. The current model aggressively flags most users as low-value. 80% of casts are orphaned—no replies, no recasts, no likes. Worse, casting into channels doesn’t trigger spam labels, which flipped the whole dynamic and spammers gravitate to casting into some channels hoping for visibility.

Good thoughts. 

Challenge with channels is tension between community vs. tag.

Channels work well when they are communities. That requires a lot of time and effort. Few people want to spend the time building / managing a community.

Average user wants to use them as tags / discovery boost.

Misalignment of incentives. Partially our fault for pushing people to cast in them for a couple years.

Working on Farcaster and Warpcast. Longer thoughts at https://dwr.email

This is really a tough nut to sort.
For new comers, like you mention I don't think Channels is a driving source or a "pull" that sells the product to them. The notion itself is pretty alien to most new users and does get overlooked. (Just my recent observations from a new Jpn user I saw).  People in Reddit would probably understand it, as the framework is created around subreddits.

That being said, when channels are pointed towards projects or particular cultural purposes, it starts to make sense. I'm looking at Firstdrafts, confessions, Degen, music types etc where the location and culture intertwine and is a 'quick fix' to find. A cozy room of sorts.

Hash tags just don't have the same atmosphere.