@vrypan.eth

I appreciate we finally get a reflection on these topics, after a long time, @v. I consider myself part of this, and I care for it. My POV, for what is worth, bellow. (I hate how "Farcaster" does not have a clear meaning these days, and I can't articulate what I feel part of, so I'll go with "it".) # Decentralized "Sufficient decentralization" was a bad choice of terms. The natural term that flows from "if two users can find each other and communicate, even if the rest of the network wants to prevent it" is probably "sufficiently censorship resistant". We are neither decentralized nor censorship resistant. The whole network is based on validators operated by two entities: Merkle Manufactory and Neynar. If those two want to prevent me from casting, they can. And since they operate under the same jurisdiction, if the US gov/courts/regulators wants to prevent me from casting, they can. I wouldn't call a network operated by Snap and Facebook decentralized -and tbf, given the adversary nature of this combination, it could be more censorship resistant than this. The moment you publicly articulate this as a problem, and have a public list of validators and their operators, I will start having some hope for the future of the network. Until then, I see a huge issue hidden under the rug, just because it's not visible to most users. # On identity Having the identity onchain was a great choice. Yes, we have a permissionless identity system, and my Farcaster presence can't be nuked at the identity level ("delete an account"). Plus one for this! This is a great building block, but it turns out that it's not very useful if MM and Neynar want to kick me out of the network. What can I do with this identity? Not much. Not much more than my ENS identity, or an NFT that I hold. # On openness This is actually the part where Farcaster is already doing extremely well, but for some reason you guys never articulate it. Farcaster is **open** to devs. They can read from and write to the network, and the API endpoint is not controlled by anyone. This is the greatest achievement and what still keeps me here. # Governance You used to be better stewards of "the protocol" (one more poorly selected term). During the last 9 months, there were changes introduced overnight, and decisions that were debated outside the public sphere. My (very personal and potentially biased) feeling is you decided "we can't spend time listening to every stupid argument, we have to move on and we know better, and we will ask the 3-4 people we want to get feedback from". Yes, off-chain governance is a soft skill, especially if you decide to play the role of the benevolent dictator. No easy wins. (But you used to score some, what happened?)

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