Farcaster

The algorithm isn’t the problem 

It can’t magically make “interesting” content appear out of thin air..

That requires actual user growth + diverse content

Imagine if every Farcaster user was given $1,000 today to help support more “interesting” content (however each individual defines “interesting”).

How would you spend it?

Assume the following rules:
- spend it over the next week or lose it
- no hoarding or trading
- must be given to other people or projects, not to fund your own
- no quid pro quo

No need to think very broadly unless you want to. I’m curious how people might spend it to cultivate the niches that interest them.

Building a little space at /thenextwave and watching everything on /videolab.

We had this with degen actually! But long term unfortunately it wasn’t sustainable

🕯️They/them. Scaled cos from 0-$300k in arr, 7-35 employees, 0-100k users. Now I’m making joyful candles at www.humankindcandles.com

I used to give away like $2-3k a month haha

1. So it was just given to everybody to use? Or did it come from personal funds?

2. It’s unfortunate that people can have genuine intentions for building community but it can come off to some as engagement farming. Feel like I see this more here than on other social media because it’s a small community.

Well, it was use it or lose it everyday. So there’s that, and it kept people engaged on the app!

I had my favourite people I enjoyed tipping, like writers, artists I also tipped for Ukraine charities too. I would tip if the content was funny, made me laugh, or if that person was particularly helpful to me. 

I did get into a bit of minor controversy, because I had a lot to give away, so I started doing daily “questions” around mindfulness to spread out my tips. Like “who do you appreciate in your life” or “what’s one thing you’re grateful for today” to 1. Diversify who I was tipping to and 2. Make people more mindful.

But others didn’t like it because they felt I was engagement farming (the algorithm at the time was more elementary, it technically would’ve boosted my engagement), and also people felt that degen should only reward “high quality” content that grows the network - unspoken etiquette. So I stopped doing it. 

But I regret that and should’ve continued because it was still within my value system to do so. And it was also my allocation to give out, otherwise it would’ve been lost in the nether!

I really don’t know anything about degen or how it worked here. I’m curious! How did you decide where to allocate the 2-3k you were giving away?