Farcaster

The challenge with channels is there’s no consensus on what they should be.

1. Distribution vs. niche interest

2. Open but tons of mod work vs. Closed but frustrating for new users

A lot of this is a result of our iteration on the feature and not having anything work. 

A simpler version not dependent on the Farcaster app—but not emphasized by it, would most likely mean other app developers could solve for the various cases. 

And now with mini apps, you could imagine channel-specific clients as mini apps.

https://farcaster.xyz/dwr.eth/0x19ce197c
https://farcaster.xyz/dwr.eth/0xd7e9b71b

there's a natural polarization in how people view/feel about channels. there's nothing wrong with all the iterations that went into channels. 

i just think that building a follower graph or distribution (like X or FC app) is different than building a community around a topic/interest that demands moderation, curation, etc. sure everyone wants distribution, but when you're building a community, distribution is downstream of *actually* building a great community. 

the big unlock of farcaster protocol can/should be, taking your identity and graph to different apps, where you can easily read/write into a context or form factor (reddit, twitter, tiktok). 

I think we have a rare chance of making this happen if we open our mindset about channels as a primitive vs. view them in just their current implementation on the farcaster app.