The Development History and Future Prospects of Web3 Social Networking

Recently, the Web3 public opinion environment is filled with hostility, and the industry seems to be in a downturn. However, in reality, Web3 social has been continuously improving, accumulating experiences and lessons, and technology is constantly evolving, gradually approaching a critical point of explosion. This article will review the development history of Web3 social, analyze the current dilemmas, and explore possible opportunities and development directions for the future.

The Underlying Needs of Web3 Social

Any successful product is built on solid demand. The basic demands of Web3 social include:

1. Establishing Connections: Building social relationships through new methods such as token holding.
2. Cognitive Interpretation: Obtaining More Dimensions of User Information from On-Chain Data
3. Self-coordination: Adjusting one's behavior in the new information environment

In the Web3 environment, token holding has become a new way of connection, where open and verifiable data expands the dimensions of accessible information, which will give rise to new interpersonal relationships and interaction models.

The Development Context of Web3 Social

The development of Web3 social networking mainly follows two routes:

1. Competition of Decentralized Social Technology Standards
2. Establishing Token Consensus through Social Networking

Decentralized Social Technology Standards

Early projects like STEEM proposed many innovative ideas, providing references for later ones. New generation projects such as Bluesky, Nostr, Lens, and Farcaster have all presented their own decentralized social protocol solutions, showing significant technological advancements.

However, Web3 social faces a significant disadvantage in terms of economies of scale. To break through this bottleneck, token incentives have become the preferred means for most projects.

Token incentive revolution encounters obstacles

Token incentives face two major dilemmas:

1. The subjective value of social content is difficult to assess, and the effectiveness of incentives is questionable.
2. Easily susceptible to witch attacks

Taking STEEM as an example, its token staking voting mechanism was effective in the early stages of the project, but as consensus collapsed and technology developed, this mechanism gradually became ineffective.

Subsequent projects like Lens protocol adopted the expected free-riding approach. However, these incentives often contradict the non-monetary nature of social returns, thereby reducing social efficiency.

Recently, the Degen token on Farcaster has introduced financial attributes through tipping, creating a wealth effect and triggering ecological prosperity, marking a successful operation.

Content autonomous revolution phase setbacks

Early projects like STEEM and Mirror attempted to put content on the blockchain, but struggled to address real issues such as content rights and infringement. Users' emphasis on content sovereignty was also not as expected.

The New Journey of Attention Sovereignty

A series of projects like Yup, Wormhole3, etc. attempt to incentivize content recommendations with tokens, but struggle to compete with Web2 smart algorithms.

Experience shows that incentivizing advanced production methods is more important than simple token incentives. New generation projects like Phavor and BlueSky are beginning to explore new referral mechanisms.

Opportunities and Mission of Web3 Social

Despite facing setbacks, Web3 social is still making progress in multiple areas:

1. Lowering user thresholds: from PC to mobile, from mnemonic phrases to MPC and abstract accounts
2. Infrastructure Improvement: Decreased Accounting Costs, Increased Transaction Speed
3. Protocol Layer Innovation: Targeted design of Layer 3, differentiated level of decentralization
4. Embedded Social Scenarios: Combination Innovation Brought by Open Source Characteristics
5. Middleware Development: Data Integration and Analysis, Token Management, Liquidity Solutions, etc.

Possible future development directions:

1. Build a small economic cycle around content creators
2. Content creators can freely choose suitable protocols and tools.
3. Involve fans in the economic cycle through tokens.
4. Decentralized media + token incentive content ecosystem
5. Cross-platform, multi-dimensional fan economy

Conclusion

The challenges of Web3 social stem from immature technology and outdated organizational forms. In the future, it may revolve around content, building an ecosystem around users and service providers. Enhancing interactivity and gathering traffic will be key to success. We should focus on the new interaction models between content and communities in a decentralized environment.