Lounge S3: Designers

Lounge S2: Channel Owners

> Where do [channels] go from here? What happens? What do channels replace? What do they do that other mediums can’t (or won’t)?

My read of channels so far is pretty Web 1.0 in that it's a descendant of bbs, online message boards and internet forums, as are all social media apps - we simply want to connect to & engage with like-minded people.

But frustration has always been on ownership, value creation and subsequently monetization. For any social media, who actually creates the value - Participants who post content (like on Tiktok)? Mods who admin (like on Reddit)? The company that builds the app? What web3 adds are more equitable rails to track & distribute value created.

So for channels, whether they stay 🚾 native or become composable at protocol level, I think where it can go as an evolution is adding a more open & robust money layer to create & share value. At protocol, this would be *much* more intuitive than DAOs; but even if just on 🚾, it'd be a meaningful upgrade from Web 2.0 status quo.

OT

In 2003 (I was 13, lol) I was an active user of Italy's biggest videogames forum. I lobbied mods to create an "art" section and I started the Adobe Photoshop Official Thread 

The site used vBulletin.com and back then, threads had a page (or post?) limit, so when we reached this the thread was automatically closed and a new one opened with a link back to the original one - lots of admin required to keep an archive of past thread iterations

It was a lot of fun, but somewhere between issue 50 and 100 the vibes changed, I guess there was some generational turnover and I left the site

Point is - if that was a farcaster channel, things would have been a lot different and all that work would not have vanished

I remember the forum days.  I still have mutuals on Facebook that I met in some of the forums I inhabited back then!  I was just thinking yesterday about how much I miss those days sometimes.  I love social media and the ways that we all end up developing or joining various virtual villages around various creators and topics, and the fluidity of being able to weave in and out of those villages as our interests and aims vary.  But man, there were some good times and good friendships made in those forums!

Devotional polytheist living a monastic lifestyle centered on curiosity, simplicity, and joy.  Exploring the intersection of technology and spirituality.

I was active on forums from 12 to 16 years old, most of my early adult friendships formed on there. Best of times