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this is how I'm thinking about farcaster + base competitive positioning right now 
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tba just introduced a "buyable by default" feature and farcaster is about to release one tomorrow. 

what does this tell us about the state of things?

on one hand, not that much. the idea around tokenizing posts has been circulating in the space for a long time. we laughed at lens when they tried it, but it's pretty cool now that we're doing it 😈  

i'm not currently an enjoyoor of any contentcoin platforms, but they do theoretically create information markets with some legibility, which could be a valuable feature for a social app

on the other hand, buyable by default means that the financial component is no longer secondary. we're at a point where it's clear that farcaster can't compete head-on against other social networks for "interesting content". things may change here but as @nonlinear.eth casted earlier, hope isn't a strategy

the best alternative strategy available on the board is to lean into tokenization and information markets. it's the only edge farcaster clearly holds over other networks.

it's the backdoor bet that farcaster, base and zora are all making and i suspect it's no coincidence that farcaster is releasing their own tokenization model right as base is. this is the main monetization axis they expect to compete on as clients

the tricky part is that these systems only work as information markets once you reach a certain scale -- a scale that neither of farcaster and zora are approaching

the optimistic path is that these information markets unlock enough value to create enough distribution to generate enough trading revenue to attract a scaled quantity of interesting content to kickstart the flywheel

but we've seen what happens when you lead too heavily with financialized social primitives. there is very little good content and a lot of bad content on zora and lens. sorry. not to mention a graveyard of forgotten social projects that have led with tokens

we have real and good content here, though not as much as we'd like. the ultimate question is whether there is enough good content and strong culture to turn the corner and make the jump from a social network to an information market

can we make the jump from social network to information market?