what can ppl learn from friend.tech ? good ponzu, good tech

building degencast.xyz /degencast . ex-bitmain, binance
u3.xyz/u/qiaoliang.eth


I saw it a few days ago and was repulsed by the need to force the user to homescreen the site to get started. The TAM is obviously people already in crypto and not looking forward to onboard crypto noobs, it makes a ton of assumptions on the user and their preferences. Before seeing what the thing is about, 1/2

ideas and learnings code x design x philosophy x entrepreneurship. prev meta google | zakelfassi.com

2/2 I had to jump through a ton of hoops, one of which is Twitter’s shitty oauth flow. The twitter linking experience isn’t smooth — it usually is better on web anyways. So tldr: not knowing the value I don’t want to overinvest, so early dropoff. Needs more user education and dumbed down UX.

This is all true to some extend and largely was my first impression too. But I learned to appreciate tiny bits that worth learning and trying not to dismiss projects too early. It's definitely more interesting than pepe or shib. So what went well?

People like novelty. Anything that’s “too out there” is no longer out there. It’s almost like 2023 broke the ceiling of innovation and what type of ideas get remixed. The winning products always induce a novelty, and succeed when it becomes copied. Snap only made it through because IG Stories did, funny enough.