Farcaster

cypherpunk wannabe | @base | msg me on XMTP/TBA

1 billion plus people using the protocol every day. 

We get there by figuring out how to grow retained daily active users sustainably.

As users grow, developers have increased incentive to build new apps and services. Creating more options of users.

Eventually, you get to a flywheel. Not close to that yet. Need to figure out what will grow retained daily active users.

All of the other properties you cite are downstream of user growth in terms of importance. Reasonable to argue that we could “rug” the promise, but we’ve been clear for last 5 years we view success as building a successful protocol.

North Star: "1 billion plus people using the protocol every day"

Using the _protocol_.

I'm not a Farcaster apologist, but a lot of "what is farcaster trying to do" can be answered as an order of operations problem.

No one cares about a protocol that looks slick technically but doesn't have any users.

Building @streme. Wanna be the very best. ゼニゼニ

Counter argument: should people care about a protocol that has a billion users but  doesn’t make users more safe or more free?

DX Engineer | DevRel at OpenZeppelin | Building orbiter.host & bhvr.dev | opinions are my own

People do care if there's a billion users regardless. 

But I don't see how that's a counterargument here. Farcaster the protocol seems to be directionally moving towards making users more safe and free?

Growth first mindset isn’t without consequences imo. You have to sacrifice parts of the protocol in order to achieve growth. It’s a delicate balance, and personally not one I trust much when VC funding is involved.

I agree at the cost of growth-first mindset. I just see irrelevance as being the 99.9% default outcome and have to hope that the founders are principled and care enough to maintain the ethos.

I think it's great to keep them in check through thoughtful people like yourself, but from my admittedly naive perspective, they seem to be dialed in with the eventual success of the protocol as the outcome they want.