Every Friday, Farcaster is filled with a relaxed atmosphere. People say "Happy Friday", "touch grass", and even cash cannon (a method of bulk reward) seems to be particularly abundant on that day. You can hardly feel this atmosphere on social media on Friday, but you can feel it in the office before get off work on Friday.
I know some people who came to Farcaster for a tour and left after saying "What's the difference between this and Twitter?" Let me tell you, when you understand the relaxed atmosphere of Farcaster last Friday, you will know the difference between Farcaster and Twitter.
A city under construction
Farcaster is a city under construction, and everything here is basically centered on builders.
Most of Farcaster's infrastructure serves builders. Similar to Twitter's post, the basic building block of Farcaster is cast; but unlike post which only has the function of content output, frames and actions on Farcaster enable casts to provide much more than content. Frames are more for the publishers of casts, which enables publishers to provide applications or services to others in the form of casts; actions are more for the receivers of casts, which enables people who see casts to perform operations on the cast or even the caster.
Whether it is frames, actions, or the programmable direct casts that may be launched soon, these most eye-catching infrastructures or basic designs on Farcaster are Lego handed to builders, allowing them to develop products in a composable way on a decentralized social network.
Channel and Group Direct Casts are two infrastructures that mainly serve content construction. Farcaster explores the rule construction of these two and enhances their capabilities, so that builders can build content more effectively and comfortably.
The vast majority of Farcaster's honors and rewards belong to builders. The mainstream currency issuance method on Farcaster is rewarding, such as the most well-known $DEGEN. Builders are people who contribute to this ecosystem and can bring value to others. They have a natural advantage in this issuance method.
The recently popular project BUILD on Farcaster directly rewards builders. Its token distribution method is that each person can nominate 3 builders every day to get $BUILD. Take me as an example. I will nominate builders I know, but most of the time, I will nominate builders corresponding to things I like on Farcaster that day, even though I didn't know them before. They are rewarded for their construction of the ecosystem, not for who they are.
The vast majority of residents in Farcaster are builders. Almost no one here talks about politics or gossip. People talk about how to effectively filter out the noise in social media while retaining effective information through mechanism design. People talk about how to build a place suitable for talking; a large number of new applications appear here every day (including independent applications, clients, frames, actions, etc.), and everyone contributes to the construction of applications, but the roles are different, which may be developers, testers, or communicators. People build, people discuss how to build, and people build tools and infrastructure for construction.
If you come to Farcaster and just expect to see a mature city, you may be disappointed. Farcaster is still a city full of scaffolding and busy builders. If you come to Farcaster not just for sightseeing, but to see if you can find any opportunities in this city, you will not be disappointed. As long as you are willing, you can become a builder in this city. There are large tracts of open space for you to choose from, you will have many tools to build, you will have some friends to build with, and you will get honors and rewards for your own construction.
You will feel relaxed on Fridays because you can take a break after a busy week of work.
Everyone can be a builder
Discuss the topic of "Everyone can be a builder" based on my own experience in Farcaster. When I came to Farcaster, I immediately created a channel called /opinion and started sharing my opinions here. However, almost no one was interested in these opinions, and I realized that this approach was wrong and I should not just stay in my own corner.
Here we need to mention an information screening algorithm of Farcaster. In most systems, new users are assumed to be real users, and they are judged to be witches only when their behavior is similar to that of witches. But in Farcaster, new users are marked as NPCs, and they are only considered real users when their behavior is similar to that of humans.
In many default settings of Warpcast (the largest client of Farcaster), the content posted by NPC users or even users who have not obtained the power badge is hidden or does not appear in the main feed. This means that when I am a new user, the content I post is less likely to be seen by others, not to mention that I only post content on my own channel.
I need to go out and establish connections with others. Isn't this the meaning of social networks? At the beginning, I just talked to others about gm, some people responded to me and some ignored me. Soon I found that there were new products every day. I used these products and provided feedback to developers, which finally made others "see" me. I was like a person wandering in a city that was under construction. If I saw someone who needed help, I would help him. It might not be meaningful, but it made me start to integrate into the city. Although I didn't build my own project, helping others build is also a kind of construction.
After staying here for a while, I had a basic understanding of the Farcaster ecosystem. I began to share new products that I thought were good, useful, or interesting, and I would also share and discuss ideas that I thought were good. When I did these things, I might help other builders and let more people know about their products and ideas, and at the same time I was building my own content.
I don't know what I will build here in the future, but there is no doubt that I am already a builder. I received a good $DEGEN reward, and was nominated as a builder by others to get $BUILD. I met many people and was also known by others. I built my own social network.
This is my journey as a non-developer and non-high-frequency content creator, from a bystander to a builder. This journey is not mainstream, but it is formed naturally based on personal interests. You don’t need to do this.
What you need to do is to stay here first, and then find something you like and can connect with others. For example, you don’t know what you can do, but you are a meme lover, so start by joining the /memes channel. Share memes here, become a builder of this channel, meet friends here, and build your initial social network here.
Onchainsocial? No, it’s onchain society
One day, I was playing Farcaster in front of the computer until 9 or 10 o’clock in the evening. I felt that I needed to relax, so I went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of sparkling water and opened a bag of potato chips. I was lying on the sofa, eating potato chips, and suddenly a huge question mark appeared in my mind: What am I doing? Why do I need to eat potato chips to relax in the middle of the night? I sat up from the sofa and thought about this question. I realized that I was not playing Farcaster at all, but working for Farcaster.
For example, collecting and organizing important information on Farcaster and passing it on to others is the job of a media editor; for example, using new applications and giving feedback is the job of a product tester.
When I realized this, a city emerged in my mind. I used the city to describe Farcaster at the beginning of the article. That was not a metaphor I found, but a picture that appeared in my mind.
A huge and busy city that is rising from the ground, and everyone is working to build this city. The unique thing is that everyone does not do things arranged by others. They find things for themselves based on their own interests or skills and then start doing them. The construction of this city has not been in chaos because of the lack of unified top-down management and unified scheduling. Instead, it has shown flexibility, creativity, passion and vitality that cannot be achieved under centralization. This city is rising rapidly, based on the independent work of each individual.
Farcaster can operate well in a decentralized and autonomous manner for the following reasons:
1. It is built on decentralized technology;
2. It initially brought together a group of builders with conviction and a good community atmosphere;
3. The distribution of currency in the form of rewards not only effectively motivates individual builders, but also inspires everyone's participation;
4. Channels are not only conducive to discussing topics and accumulating content, but also to helping people get to know each other and establish their initial social networks here. More importantly, individuals can form groups here to collaborate on a certain construction;
Back to the point. I want to sit down and write about Farcaster, not because of its user volume and daily active data, not because of the lineup of investors, nor because of the technical architecture. But because I realized that it is an unprecedented city, or an unprecedented form of social organization or way of operation. Farcaster is far more than onchain social networking, it is a brand new society built on decentralized social networks.
People don't just get information here, they also get products and services here, and these products and services are made here. People live here, here are their friends; people also work here, here are their users and partners.
Conclusion
There is a saying in "Xunzi·Encouragement to Study" that "without accumulating small steps, there is no way to reach a thousand miles." This article talks about the first step of an individual on Farcaster: find something you like and can connect with others and start doing it. It also talks about the thousand miles of Farcaster in my eyes: a brand new society built on decentralized social networks. I hope this article can help you understand Farcaster. However, the most important thing is not to study it from a distance, but to jump into it.
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