hottakes

I've thought a lot about channels since they opened up to the public in late 2023.

After various iterations, I now strongly believe channels should be entirely permissionless, as in:
- no owner
- no moderators
- no fees

Gatekeeping topics adds friction to the entire network. See /ai vs /aichannel vs /theai. Everyone wants to talk about AI but no one wants to curate or moderate these channels.

Why would they? The rate of noise will only ever increase as automation improves, and Farcaster clients should be doing a lot of the noise filtering anyway.

Curation happens with likes, recasts, and replies. The best posts already get picked by the algorithm feeds.

With this framing channels become singular hashtags. No one likes hashtags because without limits they become #SEO #maxing #word #slop. A single label strongly signals the in the intent of the message. It also allows for easy mixing by quotecasting, e.g. /dont-do-this, /someone-build, etc.

Channels as a label wouldn't work. So I propose: Contexts

#freechannels

(recasting this after 😑 while trying to cast to ai channels)

ever tried casting spells while binge-watching your fave show?