@nickysap

Farcaster's founding premise was building social that doesn't extract from users the way Web2 platforms do. That vision still matters to me. But watching the platform aggressively push casino mechanics while influential accounts push extractive, low-cap shitters is potentially more predatory. Facebook traded our privacy for advertiser money, now we're just getting directly farmed for our actual cash. I'm not innocent here. I've participated. But I'm financially capable of losing the money I put in and know the risks at the deepest possible level. In a real casino, the players know the house has an edge but the outcomes are generally balanced, albeit slightly unfair. You CAN hit the jackpot. You CAN get a blackjack that doubles your money. You CAN leave. The casino isn't woven into your social life. Perhaps this is emergent behavior and not coordinated strategy. But when platform incentives align with getting users to trade, the outcome is the same either way. "Build your own client" is at best a cop out and at worst gaslighting. We can't feasibly compete with the top Farcaster clients that have hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in funding. The hardest part for me to admit is that the trading angle will probably work. Market momentum tends to beat ideology every time. But the values that led a lot of us here is at odds with where we're going. Are we really going to build something better than we left behind? Or are we doomed to create something even worse?

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