Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Should an app and a protocol be named the same or different things? Uniswap is the app (website and now mobile app) and a protocol. This hasn't stopped developers from building on the Uniswap protocol. In addition, in the previous cycle, many consumers wanting to trade tokens onchain used the Uniswap website. Others used wallets with swap functionality built on the permisionless Uniswap protocol. For NFTs, the app and protocol were split—OpenSea and Seaport. However, since it was a consumer app, the brand being the thing consumers heard about meant that OpenSea was easier to find and onboard to. No one except for developers knew about Seaport. (Fair to say Seaport is less important protocol than Uniswap.) Email and the web both have strong protocol branding that's independent of the clients. Same goes for Ethereum, and a lesser degree Solana (in the case of wallets).
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Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Without a clear consumer-branded app, it's very hard to grow the number of *consumers*. Even L1 blockchains struggle with this -- Ethereum is the exception to the rule, maybe Solana -- Bitcoin wallet adoption never took off (most Bitcoin was bought on CEX) and other L1s really struggle with onboarding. Increasingly, you're seeing L2s build their own wallet -- World, Uni, Abstract, Blast -- and would expect that trend to continue. Most consumers—not developers!—don't want to have to navigate the nuances of app vs. protocol. They just want to download the thing their friend told them about and get the primary benefit promised.
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tldr (tim reilly)
@tldr
You just answered your own question perfectly. One name is better for consumers, and whatever is better for consumers is what’s really better for developers (revealed pref)
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Dan Romero
@dwr.eth
Better name for consumers = less confusion Less confusion = more users sign up More users sign up = more users for developers
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krel
@krel
ya, and devs adapt, users dont
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