I've been thinking about how we keep contributing, whether it's casting consistently, helping fight spam or just being active, but the way rewards are distributed feels really skewed. The current system mainly benefits a small circle of OGs who reward within their own (tight?) networks. Meanwhile, people outside those circles, even if they’re putting out good content or doing valuable work, barely see any recognition or points.

I get that rewarding early adopters makes sense to a point, but if the goal is to grow Farcaster into a more open, diverse network, this setup might actually hold that back. It keeps value locked in a feedback loop instead of spreading it to new or underrepresented voices who could help the ecosystem thrive long term.

I think the first thing that has to go is this shortlist of influential people that are dominating the Farcaster feed since I joined in January 2024. Let's call them the OGs.

The OGs that were on the autofollow list and gained 1000s of followers in early 2024 by design are now deciding who ranks high on the rewards leaderboard.

You can easily spot OGs in the trending feed, they are there every single day. Their casts are trending even without any engagement.

These OGs also decide when your casts are trending and pushed by the algo by engaging with your cast.

$hamster /hamster 
martinvr.eth 
deploy.degen.eth

Only a handful of new people(dogs?) have made it since then. They're doing well and most of the time, they deserve the credit. But this only happened because the OGs paved the way. In some cases, the newcomers even became OGs themselves.

Community builder, art lover, meme maxi, weed enthusiast.
• creator of *many* channels

If you tell them that the system don’t work that way they’d tell you to cast more 

Like that ever solved anything

If you’re a newcomer that the OGs accept (or invited themselves lol) you’re gonna grow on Farcaster

If not..

You’ll be labeled as spam😂

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