Farcaster

Please spread the word: there are 0 economic rewards—currently or in the future—for running a Hub.

Only run a Hub if you:
1. Find it fun
2. Find it useful for your project or your business

There's no surprise or gotcha that comes later.

All of the YouTube video tutorials are lying to you about a potential reward.

one of the chief innovations of smart contract blockchains was the integration of distributed networks and decentralized economics. if you take away the economics, it's very hard to maintain the network.

does it apply to hubs too? they aren’t validators in the blockchain sense

right, that's the problem - payment for the effort of operating a hub must be external and (most likely) centralized.

blockchain already solved this.

for sure, hubs don't need consensus on data ordering to ensure the same state like blockchains do, but removing that requirement from a distributed system means it cannot conduct economic activity, which means you will need to use an external system and an external reason to compensate hub operators for their work.

it's much harder to find a reason to get paid for operating a hub. you are either a dedicated hub operator (neynar), an app developer (warpcast), or just conducting a public good (unlikely to retain these operators over the long term).

the brilliance of smart contract blockchains is the concept that you can run an internet that pays for itself because payment is at the point of use.

i think, they are doing different kinds of work. blockchain nodes enforce consensus and provides availability. 

there is no blockchain like consensus here (due to crdts) but they are still providing availability