@dfern.eth

Spam is not a separate issue. Spam is just 'that which is not worth reading', subjectively defined, so when we are talking about algorithmic feed we are always talking about noise, spam, low quality posts... whatever you want to call it. The first problem is that we have contravailing evidence of small accounts that did succeed, so how do we differentiate between accounts with meh content and those with high quality where it really was the algorithm that was the fault? The other problem with this worldview is w.r.t. what I said earlier: we had whale accounts on Twitter who churned. What does that mean? It means that they had an demonstrated ability to sustain a following (modulo some 15 seconds of fame accounts). I can point to a dozen or more fairly big names in tech and crypto who ostensibly care about some version of cyberpunk values, they got thousands of followers indicating that it wasn't an algorithm problem...and they churned anyway, because they actually don't care about their digital livelihood & Town Square being owned by one unstable egoist...relative to rebuilding their following on a new platform. You're claiming that OG's pushed for an algorithm that suppressed small accounts and that's why Farcaster isn't growing. I'm asserting I have plenty of examples of accounts for which the algorithm demonstrably couldn't have been issue, they had plenty of following and promotion in the algo feed, and they churned! Perhaps part of your unstated assumption is that the only 'true' way for Farcaster to grow was through small accounts. I would assert the opposite and say that social media following works across different platforms, because it's embedded in real world gravitas for the most part and not just merely a circlejerk onto itself. Yes there are some accounts like on Reddit that would have zero ability to gain any following elsewhere but that's not true for many categories of elites like: politicians, celebrities, tech bloggers, CEOs, etc. For this to be true: There has to be some class of creator who couldn't make it on traditional social media, for whatever reason, and the magic of a more permissive Warpcast algo feed would unearth their genius. Perhaps this might be possible with an expensive LLM filter that can amplify unfound social signal over noise, but figuring out how to do that sustainably is a completely different question from blaming it on OGs for not wanting 50 garbage casts so that one real high quality user can be discovered. I can also point to several areas where OG's weren't listened to but that's a separate discussion, and I don't take personal umbrage at Merkle for not listening to every suggestion lobbed from the peanut gallery. I also am not incessed they aren't dropping the wallet first strategy because some OGs are nonplussed. There's a third option: build the algo feed that promotes the small accounts and see if it can be sustainably done without pissing everyone off with garbage.

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