Dan Romero on Farcaster

androidsixteen pfp

@androidsixteen.eth

Ted: “ok you guys, let’s stop talking about Farcaster on Farcaster — new users think it’s weird” Everyone, last week: “bet” Everyone, this week: *posts leaderboard screenshot every 2 hours to engagement farm*

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Cameron Armstrong

the problem is every crypto twitter big dawg that gets nerdsniped by farcaster (even if just for a week or two) literally just wants to talk about the thing that nerdsniped them it’s their new toy and our new toy is their temporary fascination with our told toy no way to acquire new nerds without gettin nerdtalk

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@androidsixteen.eth

Great articulation I think onboarding the crypto nerd cohort with fancy money toys is at odds with acquiring GA users who don’t care about the nerdy stuff (hence Ted’s feedback) It’s like a conflicted GTM — do you want to niche down or scale?

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Cameron Armstrong

Yea I agree in the general case but in our specific farcaster case we have a long tail deconfliction problem Crypto long tail cares first about free internet money and then accidentally gets entertained/may stick around for the memes + vibes Normal long tail just wants memes and jokes and content Crypto long tail will listen to whatever boring shit the CT big dawgs will say bc they think it might reveal alpha or a shitcoin or w/e So all the normie signal is blurred by the arguably more incentivized CT long tail class I don’t think there is a clean GTM that lets you acquire both bc as you pointed out they are fundamentally at odds. Best idea I have is further siloing the feed and basically engineering a “crypto farcaster algo” and a “non crypto farcaster algo” to separate the cultures but I think that’s unfortunately worst of both worlds strategy My guess is merkle continued full bore money audience a la coinbase forced growth and gambling games or they shut down in <2 years Long term, i think we need to make mini apps that give a real reason for communities to hang out more. Combo that with revitalized channels thst looks closer to discord with some public feed connected components and we might have a chance at being a permanent place on the internet e

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@androidsixteen.eth

I think you’re right about the segregated feeds, and that seems to be what’s happening I just don’t think the degen growth strat leads to quality growth — people who come for money are mercenaries. You can extract swap fees from them, but you’re not going to build civil society And speaking as a non gambling mini app dev, I need more “normal” users to grow and for creators to have a big enough audience to monetize well. The gamblers don’t care about good content

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Cameron Armstrong

Yea I certainly have my tinfoil hat feelings of relegation to the off-meta feed haha I also agree, but with maybe a huge caveat I think the Merkle team has very strong opinions about the challenge of content generation and very little attachment to individual creators outside of avoiding the anger of longtime users Gun to my head I bet they believe: - Most people will always make bad content (or at least content that is “bad” outside their immediate social circle) - Creators as a class are fundamentally economically unsustainable at least at current % of population rates (thats why we get sub min wage weekly prizes not something more structured) - AI content esp infinitely generative custom content will supersede most if not all content creators in the next 5-10 years - The normies will follow the AI content - But since normies don’t use crypto apps yet, let’s prioritize CT big dawgs So normal users aren’t coming anytime soon

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Dan Romero pfp

> Gun to my head I bet they believe: 1. Two classes of content creators: professionals and then amateurs. Professionals need to make enough money to live. So they will optimize for the +EV platform of audience, growth potential and ability to make money. Amateurs are usually happy if they get anything (it's unexpected). Some are hanging out / having fun and others are focused on entirely on status (you're average Twitter account that has a day job). 2. Normal people use social apps: 1) be entertained (likely because their friends are there) and weaker but exists 2) dating 3) professional reasons. 3. Farcaster is sub-scale on entertainment today and your friends are probably not here. Dating (not much) and professional (a bit). 4. So we have to solve for something that will get people to sign up for the app and stick around assuming their friends aren't here. Money is by far the most retentive thing we have on the network -- whether through rewards, tips, FC-native money events like DEGEN. 5. The problem with money in the forefront is it feels icky and scammy to most people. They're wary (rightfully!) that it sounds too good to be true. 6. So our hypothesis / challenge is how to product market the positive elements of a social network where everyone has a wallet and money (in the form of stablecoins, which are friendly UX) flows freely to a wider population of people (not just creators with big audiences).

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Cameron Armstrong

Thanks for replying! Any thoughts on AI content and the fundamentals of building a “social network” in the context?

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Dan Romero pfp

AI will impact everything. No way to avoid it. People will seek out entertainment. If it's AI generated or not as long as it's funny, then you might not care. Some people will value plausible authenticity a bit more. I also expect new stuff to emerge in the same way the camera changed painting. But also Photoshop and ubiquitous digital cameras didn't end photography.

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Cameron Armstrong

appreciate your thoughts 🫡

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