Friend Tech is a social application that has become very popular since this bear market. When the project was first launched, it attracted a large number of users thanks to the support of heavyweight venture capital Paradigm and the entry of many KOLs.
The main gameplay of this project is to tokenize the personal value of KOLs and allow users to interact with KOLs by paying to join the group. In this interactive process, users gain the value of KOLs, and KOLs gain corresponding returns.
Regarding this project, I remember expressing the following views in articles or online exchanges:
Similar ideas were once implemented in projects during the ICO boom in 2017, but ultimately failed. The main reason was that KOLs whose personal values were tokenized could not rigidly fulfill their promises and could not provide real services and value to users who paid the price.
In addition, there is already a mature model for the realization of KOL value in mobile Internet applications. Although the platform's commission is very high under the Internet model, I always feel that this does not seem to be a reason to use blockchain technology.
For these reasons, I have never participated in Friend Tech.
When Friend Tech was first launched, there were many articles discussing the economic model of the project in detail. People liked to study how users could profit from the buying and selling of tokens of this project from the perspective of the economic model.
This is a trend among many crypto projects nowadays, but I always feel that a truly popular crypto project certainly needs a good economic model, but it is definitely not the most core part. The most core part must meet certain rigid needs in the ecosystem or solve certain stubborn problems in the ecosystem.
Over-emphasizing economic models mostly leads to speculative demand rather than real user demand. The speculative demand in the crypto ecosystem is generally closely related to the price of project tokens. However, most of the tokens in the current crypto ecosystem are not profitable, so their prices are often driven by emotions. Emotions come and go quickly, and once they cannot be maintained, they may collapse in an instant.
I think this is also an important reason why many projects (including Friend Tech) ultimately fail to proceed.
Since the social field in which Friend Tech is located has always been a track that everyone pays close attention to, the changes in Friend Tech have also triggered everyone's reflection on the social track.
I also shared some of my thoughts on Web 3 social in an online discussion last weekend:
I still have some doubts whether the Web 3 social networking we expect is a false demand or whether the real Web 3 social networking is not the model we can imagine now?
Following this line of thought and reflecting on it, the reason why Facaster, which was very popular in the past few months, became popular was not because of anything special about its model, but because a small number of celebrities in the crypto ecosystem came together to form a circle effect.
If this niche celebrity had used a traditional mobile Internet app instead of Facaster, I estimate that app would also become popular in the crypto ecosystem.
So does Facaster really need blockchain?
I hope I'm wrong.
According to relevant information, the Friend Tech team made a total profit of about $40 million in this project. I don’t know the actual number of people in the team and how much they spend each month. But based on the status of general crypto projects, if the project is not wasted since its launch last year, $40 million would be enough to sustain the project.
If a team is truly committed to building in this ecosystem, I think the team can give it another try and try other paths.
Some time ago, there was news that the project team was preparing to build a social chain. Although I am cautious about this idea, at least it is an attempt and effort, which is better than giving up and leaving.
No matter how you look at it, this project has only been online for about a year. There are many projects in the crypto ecosystem that are in more difficult situations and have taken longer, but people are still persisting and working hard.
Many times, as long as a project can make it to the end and survive, the hope of victory and the chance of success will be much greater.
Friend Tech has gone from its former glory to its current decline. There are many things worth observing and reflecting on. Although this process is regrettable, it is also an indispensable and normal phenomenon in the development of the ecosystem.
We don't need to be pessimistic about the ecological future.
