hottakes

Tokens have done more harm than good to Farcaster

Full Stack Dev | Head of Developer Relations at /pinata | Technical Writer | Tinkering with everything | stevedylan.dev/links

While I agree with the general sentiment, I think it just helped fast forward the inevitable.

1) crypto x social is unavoidably hyper financialized. Those here to witness tech change can afford to be patient (being well paid tech workers) with all the shortcomings. Those here to make a quick buck have every incentive to given how much can be made with the simplest actions. Then there’s everyone in between; and most people aren’t allergic to free money.

2) social networks in general needs a way to financialize to keep the lights turned on and their 1% content creators happy somehow. The tokens are only funding the latter right now but I think it helps us acclimate to a future with ads or similar models.

I would rather have bots facading as interested people than the drainer scam hellscape that was Twitter not too long ago.

Did the network grow too quickly overnight? Probably. It’s hard to say if slow and steady would have continuously kept up the way it did last year.

father, husband, css golfer, ux engineer, silently defining variables as /sdv sdv.wtf

Solid take, and I agree that it was inevitable.