I used to think that bots on Farcaster were problematic because of spam, but it's bigger than that.

If I respond to a bot, I feel like an idiot who wasted his time building a connection with a ChatGPT wrapper. 

It makes me suspicious of new users, and I tend to respond primarily to people I already know. This means that it's harder for genuine new users to build relationships on the network.

It could be fine for social *media*, but it's bad for the social *network*. 

What would be the ways to mitigate that?

Give up. The old social contract is over and the bots are a part of life now.

The Farcaster formerly known as Kchamp. Books, beats, bodybuilding, bright ideas and beautiful things.

katherinechampagne.com 

My only gripe is the tendency of people that have fully embraced the base network (users and founders) touting these growth numbers as if they are real users.   Feels very dishonest and to some degree has made me lose some faith in base and FC.  In the past when bots were just followers and likes they pose no threat to the network.  Now its a different story when people just don’t read comments anymore and are hesitant to reply.  It’s a big shift and it’s only just barely starting.