A rant I wrote yesterday referenced the birth of more clone projects in crypto. I took the time to discuss friend.tech and its relevance a few weeks ago as well. So, you might ask, why do you mention it?
The reason I am talking about decentralized social media platforms again, is because there's another one.
Post.tech, the Arbitrum clone
The Arbitrum clone of friend.tech, post.tech, recently had over $1.8 million dollars in daily trading volume. The achievement, while impressive, doesn't compare well to its predecessor, friend.tech. The original version has seen days with $20 million dollars in daily transaction volume and $250 million in total volume.
Despite the lower volumes, the activity increased on post.tech recently. Why? After all, the only new feature on the new platform, is the ability for ALL members to see all messages, where as friend.tech only allowed the channel owner that right.
Airdrops
Those familiar with engagement and user behavior in crypto, might have guessed that users are attempting to farm an airdrop. At the moment, friend.tech rewards users points, which might suggest an airdrop down the line. Post.tech operates under a direct payment method: users get cash based on more specific, defined activity.
Is there a problem?
Yes. Well, yes and no. The reason why there is no problem remains autonomy and agency. Any developer with the time, skills and resources may develop any project they'd like.
nihil sub sole novum
They can, and even if they try their hardest to differentiate, there is nothing new under the sun. Arguably, these new developers made only one change to an already existing platform, which was a re-gifting of the same platform, BitClout, which are all trying their damnedest to replicate the product here on the $HIVE blockchain.
The reason why there is a problem is mass adoption. Yesterday's point was that a Discord trading bot is irrelevant to bringing on new users to the platform. Many of the vaporware solutions offered by crypto don't approach an important problem for the average user. Art launchpads might be the only business everybody can think of.
$HIVE might be the only social media platform where revenue generation doesn't ask you to bend over backwards. Twitter could only justify paying you if you did bring 5 million impressions. We can't all get participation points. Even if onboarding is just one person at a time, I'd rather bring them one at a time where others build value for people, not just speculate to enrich themselves.