removing the cost for real users to join and contribute to the network is an existential problem farcaster needs to solve

most people don't pay for social media - doesn't matter if it's $1 or $10 - it's not something they're used to

this is also an existential problem for apps building on farcaster

If you remove cost, you have infinite spam.

If you gate sign ups, it's not permissionless.

Warpcast has tried a couple of large, reasonably scaled experiments with free sign ups and the long term retention rate is basically 0.

and so alas we're stuck with 250k+ automated bot accounts willing to pay the $5 fee to use warpcast in order to get an airdrop

when the average person who uses web2 social networks as legitimate social networks or media platforms will say "wtf $5, no way" (including two of my siblings)

don't envy you

/ted | exploring the onchain frontier | surfing @ venice, ca | eating @ gjusta / gjelina

People not willing to pay $5 are unlikely to retain. So don't optimize the UX for these people right now. 

If we 10-100X users, then a read-only sign up mode might make more sense. More juice to squeeze focusing on people willing to pay right now.

Who is the “ideal user” right now? I assume it’s still fairly crypto savvy/native people?

How far out do you think we are from “main stream” aka normal folks joining and thriving here?