It's been nearly three years since I joined Farcaster, a "sufficiently decentralized" social protocol. I wrote about my tentative optimism about the protocol back then while acknowledging that I had been burned in the past when expectations ultimately didn't live up to reality.
Unfortunately, Farcaster has failed to live up to the expectations I had three years ago. I'll explain why, but first, here's a quick primer on how the protocol works.
Farcaster's Protocol
Farcaster achieves its self-determined sufficient level of decentralization through the use of both blockchain smart contracts and a blockchain-like network of Snapchain nodes.
The blockchain smart contracts manage name/handle registration and paying for storage. Storage payments go to the protocol and ensure posts, comments, likes, etc are not pruned. Snapchain nodes do all of the actual storage of Farcaster data as well as routing between other nodes. Much like a blockchain network, Snapchain nodes must store an entire copy of the entire network's data.
Technically, anyone can run a Snapchain node, but as you might expect, most people rely on a few paid services to manage this for them. Farcaster itself has a client (confusingly) called Farcaster. The Farcaster client runs its own Snapchain nodes, but there are service providers that allow app developers and other clients to plug into hosted and highly available nodes.
Onboarding to Farcaster requires cryptocurrency. This is simply due to the nature of how the naming system works and how it interacts with the blockchain. This, of course, is quite the hurdle for many people.
Every post, follow, like, and more is data stored on Snapchain nodes. Every user has a paid storage allocation. If they exceed the allocation, older data can be "pruned" which means deleted forever. Users can pay for more storage at any time.
Farcaster's Promise
The promise is one rooted in one of the web's most loved and most abandoned primitives. RSS. Dan Romero, one of Farcaster's co-founders, wrote about the idea of RSS+ which was the original spec for the Farcaster protocol. It's worth a read, but it's also important to recognize that Farcaster did not use RSS. No piece of the original inspiration was used.
This runs counter to the idea of using withered technology to build something new. This is not a critique of Farcaster's design decisions. Instead, I'm just pointing out that no matter what the original intent was, Farcaster was not built to satisfy the RSS+ spec.
So, then, what is Farcaster's promise? It is to build a sufficiently decentralized social network. What does sufficiently decentralized mean? According to Varun Srinivasan, another Farcaster co-founder, it means:
A social network achieves sufficient decentralization if two users can find each other and communicate, even if the rest of the network wants to prevent it. This implies that users can always reach their audience, which can only be true if developers can build many clients on the network. If only one client existed, it could stop users from communicating. Achieving this only requires three decentralized features: the ability to claim a unique username, post messages under that name, and read messages from any valid name.
I think Farcaster has largely achieved their design goal. The concept of social networks and decentralization is a topic for an entirely different blog post.
What Changed?
For me, Farcaster's promise was not just about decentralization and open networks. Those things are important to me. However, the big promise I was most interested in was an implied promise (or maybe just something I hoped for). It was a protocol that was on the blockchain or blockchain adjancent that enabled portability, data ownership, and composability, all without catering to the lowest common denominator of blockchain's ecosystem to this point: gambling.
Unfortunately, Farcaster—in its pursuit for growth (and having users on a social protocol is very important)—has leaned entirely into the worst memes of blockchain. Every bad thing people say about crypto and blockchain is now supported on Farcaster and encouraged. Launching random coins, prediction markets, speculation—it's all leverage for growth that has, so far, not come. My belief is that Farcaster had hoped to attract most of crypto Twitter with these devices, but the play has not worked.
Now, someone might say that Farcaster the protocol does not support these things. This is an app-layer implementation. That's true. But a protocol does not exist in a vacuum. Wait, actually, it does. It is the app layer that gives the protocol oxygen and life. So, while the protocol does not explicitly drive gambling and crypto speculation behavior, the app layer does. And in doing so, the protocol attracts developers who want to build crypto speculative applications. It's an isolation machine that creates an echo chamber of behaviors that are rarely challenged.
Farcaster could have been better. Better for whom, though? For me, surely. But who else? If Farcaster's entire growth strategy is to attract crypto-native people who enjoy the speculative side of blockchain, then they could not be better. They are hitting their target. If their goal was to grow beyond crypto, they are failing. I'm not sure that's the goal though.
Dan Romero has stated that they need to grow with crypto first. The problem with this strategy is that it paints them into a corner. Take Bluesky as an example. They grew with the Twitter exodus after Elon Musk took over. This created a very left-leaning user base. It's an echo chamber of its own because of this. Growth strategies have long-term effects, so Farcaster's decision to attract crypto Twitter type users should be considered in the long-term sustainability of the protocol and the app layer.
This brings me back to my personal feelings. Farcaster has lost its place in my heart because of its trajectory, and that's OK. As long as the team has a plan and understands it, they don't have to cater to me. Everyone has an ego, and I'm no different. So, I do think they should focus outside of crypto (it may be too late for this), but what I think is irrelevant to anyone but me.
I'll still use Farcaster, but my activity has already decreased. There are a lot of people I genuinely enjoy following and interacting with, and I don't want to lose those connections. But The level of effort I have put into the protocol and the app layer over the last three years will not be maintained. And maybe that's for the best, regardless of the protocol. Social media does not make us better. It tends to make us worse. And that is yet another topic for an entirely different blog post.
If you want to find me, I'll be posting here more.
Tell me what you thought - justin@polluterofminds.com