Social media went wrong, but web3 is trying to fix it.
or simply join the dark side, and we'll never see rebellion again.
A hidden land of unheard products — social media built on blockchain. You could ask: "Why build social media on a blockchain? Instagram works its best on centralized structure. They have nice user experience, good design, work fast. Why overcomplicate it? Because it works its best for the company, not for its users. I'm gonna explain why."
Remember when social media was about keeping up with your friends? You’d log in, see what they were up to, maybe post something. Now? Feeds are just a firehose of random content, memes, ads, and strangers. So how did we get here?
From friends to endless feed
When Systrom built Instagram, it was an app to share photos with friends. For years, Instagram struggled with revenue and made losses.
Reverse your experience. What did you do while scrolling Instagram? Bet you spent 90% of the time watching random people and videos unrelated to your friends. How did we end up here?
Short answer — business. If the product is free, the only way to monetize it through ads, which worked fine for a while. But then white collars enter the chat and optimised it for profit. How did u optimise ads business model?
Increasing your time on the app allows the company to show you more content, leading more ads. You can increase time on the app, by leveraging the algorithm.
When you follow specific accounts, it doesn’t help the company; they don’t control your feed. it ends quickly, and you close the app. Welcome, the unlimited feed. Now u can scroll endlessly, because the algorithm learned from ur interactions and shows you content that serves the company’s purpose.
Feed’s curse
I bet I’ll have commenters under the article, that feed is choice, just don’t subscribe that much. it was the way long time ago. Now feed isnt planning to stop. It sorts accounts the way it wants, adds recommendations to both, stories and photos. You have 0 control over ur feed. Company has, and it dictates what to consume, and how long, successfully.
Once the company controls your feed, they control your time. And that's where the real damage begins.
How it destroys you
Average session on social media constantly grows. When I was addicted to social media, I was holding an iPhone for 5-6 hours per day. That’s crazy, right? From 24 hours, 8-10 taken for sleep, u left with 14-16 hours and spend 5-6 hours scrolling feeds on LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. That’s crazy waste of the most valuable resource. Time.
Most resources in life you can refill or return, like money, health (partially), but time isn’t reversible in any way. As scrolling media is consuming your time, means you trade the most valuable resource for quick dopamine. So it’s the shittiest business deal. Cut it loose.
When you play the scale of dopamine, it’s a very dangerous game. For a reason people addicted to drugs, cuz it boosts their dopamine level enormously high. And their brain used to dosage and asks for more. Social media isn’t different. More content u consume, much less it boosts your brain, so it asks you for more. And as u can see formats are becoming easier and easier. We went from books, to newspaper, and accelerating further lead us to short videos like TikTok, Snap, Shorts, Reels.
Proceeding with the analogy, our brains will get used to it too. And content will become simpler. Future generations can lose book reading behavior, because it’s hard, and difficult to extract dopamine out of books, where enormously optimized for dopamine TikToks and reels come in place.
Good thing is you can break free the curve and choose another part.
Rat race
We didn’t even finish yet. If you noticed, the activity on media measured by likes, reports and comments, and it puts u into the rat race. Here are your friends, u follow them. What likes have to do with this? Nothing. It’s socially acceptable game, to push ur ego. Its not about quality of content anymore. In the era of AI-generated posts, and crazy algorithms weird content arises. LinkedIn even asks you to scale connections. Dude, nobody knows 30,000 people..
You think we said everything? LMAO, we’re only starting.
Ownership and monetization
When you’re blogging, it’s like a real job, but you didn’t get paid anything. You create all formats content for the feed, companies place ads between your posts, or ur friends’. and u get 0. Nice deal, isn’t it?????
Here is the citation from Facebook’s terms of use. You grant license on everything.
There aren’t many platforms which share revenue with creators. YouTube is the oldest and most famous among them. They take 45% of total revenue from creator earnings. Later OnlyFans, Boosty, Patreon came into place, with the range 5-20% fee, more generous than anything else.
Of course, you can place your own ads into videos, but it’s a privilege of few. Small bloggers can’t afford collaborations with brands.
You can think: Well, they don’t share revenue with me, so I’m gonna leave and take my audience with me. Corporate lawyers are already laughing, ‘cause you don’t own anything on social media. Audience, account, content. You gave out everything for nothing. U don’t create rules, its not a fair cooperation. It’s theirs, didn’t u read terms of use and privacy policy? Well…
Wanna own audience and content? Build ur website or launch its own app. We might mention several platforms, which take different approaches:
We earn, when u earn (Substack does that, taking 10%)
We sell u infrastructure, revenue and content are yours (Beehiiv model, from 30$ monthly)
You don’t own revenue stream, your audience, your account, your content on traditional social media. Placing anything there is giveaway.
Introducing web3 social media
The problems with traditional social media—addiction-driven algorithms, lack of ownership, zero revenue sharing—created a perfect storm that demanded a solution. Enter Web3, the next evolution of the internet.
The internet's evolution tells a story:
Web1 (1990s): Read-only internet where we consumed information passively
Web2 (2000s-present): Social internet where we both consume and create, but companies own everything
Web3 (emerging): The ownership internet, where users control their data, content, and relationships
Web3 social media didn't emerge in a vacuum—it directly responded to creators' and users' frustrations with being products instead of partners.
Platforms like Facebook are built on centralized infrastructures. Only one “department” keeps the control. It’s like an authoritarian regime in politics. They set rules, rates and everything else. Nobody can build on top of Facebook without permission (strict API policies).
Web3 as it is
Distribution of power
While traditional social platforms optimize for engagement at any cost, Web3 social media reimagines the relationship between platforms and users. Here's what makes it revolutionary:
Web3 social media compared to Instagram and Facebook are decentralized. General characteristics of them would be like this:
Platform built on top of the decentralized blockchain, giving users true ownership
The platform isn't ruled by one specific company—power is distributed across independent entities.
No single company (like Mastodon's founders) can ban users or change rules without community consensus.
Your data is your own—it's an entity on blockchain that companies can't steal or access without permission.
This applies to Farcaster, Mastodon, Lens Protocol and BlueSky. They all use different stacks of technologies & approaches, and it doesn’t matter for us here. Key point — decentralization of power.
User Experience Reimagined
Web2 can’t afford to transfer feed control to the user; it’s killing their business. Even if they give u a deal to cut out ads and recommendations, they’ll make less and ur time in the app will decrease, which is bad. That’s why Instagram subscription didn’t go anywhere. Algorithmic feed and ads make them richer.
Web3 went the other way from the beginning. Initially, they didn’t have algorithms. Many still don’t. But Bluesky, introduced the market of feed algorithms, so u can choose. In the beginning, Farcaster and Mastodon didn’t have algorithms.
BlueSky, left control to the user but presented a marketplace of algorithms. You can decide how your feed works. It’s amazing.
RSS
If you don’t know, RSS is an amazing tech that allows u to subscribe feeds, if the website supports it. An RSS reader lets you read Twitter and LinkedIn profiles without the BS. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter allowed such algorithms, but shut down. You guessed it, they did so because they were losing control over the feed. You could skip ads, recommendations, new features, and just read your favorites peacefully.
Empire Web3 strikes back, returning this feature to the users. Farcaster, Mastodon, BlueSky all support RSS. You can pick 2-3 profiles from each and make one feed. Full control, isn’t it?
P.S: Farcaster supports RSS, but u need Master Degree in CS to extract ur ID, im out of this game.
Quirky fact on RSS: newsletters don’t look so BS as social media is because they exist outside of algorithms, on mail clients and RSS feeds. No need to compete. Every feed is unique and authentic. Thank RSS for that.
Here is how RSS from my posts at BlueSky & Mastodon look like:
Not perfect (actually looks bad), but I can read my posts in a vacuum, with 0 algorithms. It’s a dream.
Did you find Facebook’s design is horrible and disgusting? You’re not alone. You can’t influence it and must get used to it.
Customizable interface.
Web3 socials impress you here. On Farcaster u can customize the app’s interface by contributing to 3 things:
Coding, because it’s an open source.
Developing plugins and mini-apps to run inside the app
Changing buttons’ functions
You heard it right. There is a long list of features which could be assigned to buttons on Farcaster, and those functions developed by enthusiasts. For example, I can pick a Paybot and send money to another user with only 2 clicks:
As we discussed, the creator economy isn’t the strength of Web2. Count two hands’ fingers to describe one after another. There is so few of them: Patreon, Substack, OnlyFans, YouTube, etc. And they’re perfect, they take a cut from ur revenue. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn pay u zero, no matter how popular and how difficult ur content to produce. You acquire users to their platform, which become their assets and they pay u 0 for these assets.
Web3 didn’t go this way.
Creator Economy Done Right
Web3 gave birth to platforms, which allow u to support each piece of content separately. That’s another approach.
Unlike traditional social platforms where your audience is locked to one platform, Web3 social media introduces true content and audience portability. Thanks to blockchain protocols like Lens, your account, content, and followers exist independently of any single app.
Think of it like email: regardless of whether you use Gmail, Outlook, or Apple Mail, your email address and contacts remain yours. Similarly, if you're unhappy with one Web3 social app, you can simply move to another app that supports the same protocol—taking all your posts, followers, and engagement history with you. This fundamentally shifts power from platforms to creators, ensuring you never have to rebuild your audience from scratch.
Platforms which support Lens Protocol. You can move your content and audience around:
Collectible NFTs
Platforms like Mirror and Paragraph present every content piece as collectible NFTs. It means that users can literally buy it and the creator left with all the money from the article.
You guessed it right, platforms built on the blockchain, where user accounts, content, everything stored on blockchain. It also allows u to support the creator directly, as you know his crypto wallet. Send him tokens, give away NFT, whatever u want.
Imagine how cool it works with musicians, artists, who can post art and get paid right away. I’m so fascinated by such fact.
Fight against censorship
Storing content on decentralized blockchain makes censorship impossible, as different entities must comply with consensus, and its not the platform itself. Those are users.
I noticed our article became so vanilla, so positive and exciting. Don’t be naive, nor technology exists without cons. Let’s make the article fair.
The Challenges of Web3 Social
Too technical
Crypto and blockchain (including web3) are mostly technical domains. To enter, u need to learn hard concepts and constantly evolve with new technologies.
It’s hard barrier to pass on the tech adoption journey. Everything becomes adoptable when it becomes cheaper, simpler, cooler.
Web3, on the other hand, just overloads you with protocols, tokens, networks, wallets, transactions, numbers, symbols like TRX, ETH.
It’s not friendly. if u look at the media as a dopamine machine, then compared to normal Instagram, Web3 is out of competition. Learn all these concepts for what??? To read crypto-related content only? That’s a shitty deal, gotta say.
UX/UI
The domain’s technicality makes it mandatory for non-crypto builders to enter and create. All products are created by weird devs and register artists. Last thing those geniuses care about is UX/UI.
It happens naturally, your eyes get blurred, the longer you’re inside the “system.” I personally struggled with illogical design, while navigating a couple of apps, texted those devs, and they pretended nothing’s wrong. Like hell yeah, that’s what crypto is. Nobody can adopt, understand, simplify. Im talking from the perspective of active crypto user…. Damn, imagine rookies…
Another weird thing, sometimes blockchain isn’t helicopter’s money. You need to pay $5-10 per profile for a year. Not an issue for me, but for curious people wanting to try web3, that’s a big issue and lowers sign-up conversion. Plus it makes the place more radicalised, as new people with newer views don’t come often.
There is an overload of social media
There are 5+ web3 social apps now: Farcaster, Lens, BlueSky, Mastodon... who has time to check all? Plus ur regular Twitter (or X). That's when aggregators like Firefly and YUP come in clutch.
These apps are pretty sick - they pull everything into one feed. Firefly lets u scroll web3 and Twitter content in one place, post everywhere at once, and manage all ur crypto stuff. YUP does similar things but with its own twist. No more app-jumping just to keep up with ur people.
Here are some screenshots from Firefly:
It's kinda like how we stopped caring which email app we use - Gmail, Apple Mail, whatever - cuz they all do the same job. The same's happening with social media now. The platform matters less than seeing all your stuff in one place.
But don’t forget we’re in web3, blockchain, and UX/UI of these apps is far from okay.
The Future of Social Media
Look, social media ain't gonna change overnight. We're probably gonna see something weird happening - like Instagram slowly adding web3 features while web3 platforms get better at copying what makes IG addictive (minus the evil stuff).
Here's what's probably coming:
Mix of Old and New
Traditional apps gonna start playing with blockchain (they already do)
Web3 apps gonna steal the good parts of Instagram/Twitter.
Bridges between old and new platforms (like what Firefly's doing)
AI Stuff
You'll actually control ur feed algorithm (crazy, right?)
Better content moderation that isn't just some random dude's decision
Smart contracts that pay u automatically when ur content slaps
Less Crypto Bullshit
No more "connect your wallet" just to post a pic.
Normal usernames instead of 0x7f3d...whatever
Apps that don't look like they're built by crypto nerds
Money Moves
Direct payment channels between creators and fans
Communities where engagement = actual ownership
Tiny payments for content (like cents per like)
Automatic revenue sharing
Privacy That Makes Sense
Finding the sweet spot between public blockchain and private stuff
Better ways to prove things without showing everything
U decide what data to share.
Next 5 Years
Instagram and Twitter aren't dying tomorrow. Web3 social's gonna grow up next to them, like that cool cousin who does things differently. Success isn't about killing Meta - it's about giving people desirable options.
The future's not about which tech wins - it's about letting u choose how to connect and monetize your content, and making it less annoying to use.