“Conflating Farcaster 'the protocol' with Farcaster 'the social media platform built on top of the protocol' limits people's perspective on what can be built on Farcaster.”

Maybe it’s just the case that we want farcaster to be something it’s not

I think the complaints come from a good place and are valuable regardless of your focus

There is a conflict between building a protocol and seeking PMF at the same time. It seems kind of impossible to do both

Agree on all. By decentralising this early they made their already impossible job twice has hard

I wouldn’t bet that they would have done it again if they knew they’d end up on mini apps as the developer growth vector

playing /bracket, assisting /bracky, talking /greatbooks

Agree on all. By decentralising this early they made their already impossible job twice has hard

I wouldn’t bet that they would have done it again if they knew they’d end up on mini apps as the developer growth vector

https://farcaster.xyz/stephancill/0x8e3ef694

Distilling our past convos on this, something I’d add:

I sincerely believe Farcaster *wants* to be as decentralized as they can be… while still also becoming relevant and being used (otherwise, it’s decentralized for nothing)

If anything, MM’s mis-steps so far have been doing things that go for decentralization too soon, at the expense of growth

The reason this matters is that I believe they intend to make FC the protocol we all want to it be (multi client, decentralized, permissionless) whenever the app achieves momentum on user growth.

Steve Ballmer quote from Acquired:

“Platforms need apps. You want to own the top first party app that runs on your platform, otherwise your platform can’t get good. 

Office was the best first party app on Windows. Outlook was the best first party app on Exchange.

You want to

Yano 🟪

Mini apps will eat the internet | Latest drop: /clankermon | Building : /miniapps /large /fctrivia /flappycaster /jeeves /source @degentip @playsource /jump

I subscribe to Product-led platform development. I think it’s more nuanced for protocols

Relevant
https://x.com/JasonYanowitz/status/1929566771071037504?t=gIIgPgb0zEg_K1toleyJMQ&s=19

Hmmm I don’t share the frustration the developer things mentioned are just tools to improve ux to me

As a developer the things I care about are legos (bonus points if they can’t be rugged) and users

As a user the things I care about are useful/interesting/entertaining experiences with good UX (e.g. not having to start from scratch on every new app I try)

Farcaster has the opportunity to one-shot both sides of the equation. That’s why it’s equal parts exciting and frustrating to watch it develop

Caring about the protocol of an app is a nerd thing still. Only apps matter

blockspace babe. cultural attaché from ‘06 twitter. adjacent possible fanatic 🌐 UTC–4

We are bound by the vision of the founders – for better or for worse

I'm of that view that it's whatever we want it to be (.. until it's not)

but it can be

do you consider farcaster still in its early phases or have we passed that point yet?