Vitalik discusses the dilemma of decentralized social networks: How can network effects be broken?

【Blockchain Rhythm】Ethereum co-founder Vitalik recently shared his thoughts on decentralized social media.

He mentioned that over the past two years, he has mainly used Farcaster and has recently begun to delve deeper into this field for two reasons. First is the current situation—Twitter’s discussion quality is declining and it is no longer suitable for hosting global conversations; the market needs more diverse options. Second is a more fundamental challenge, the so-called “network effect.” No matter how excellent a product is, it cannot sustain itself if it lacks a larger user base, even if it has more advanced algorithms and better privacy protections; everything remains theoretical.

He believes Firefly has found a breakthrough. This product has two major features: it is a decentralized social media platform itself, and it also acts as an entry point for multiple protocols. Users can access the Twitter ecosystem through it, as well as enter the Farcaster ecosystem, without needing to switch platforms frequently. This clever design addresses the key obstacle to the development of Web3 social— the network effect dilemma. In other words, it reduces the cost of user migration, giving high-quality products the opportunity to gradually accumulate new ecosystem participants without losing their existing user base.