Why Web3 Social Graphs Will Render Web2 Algorithms Obsolete

Web2 algorithms are opaque, engagement-optimized, and siloed. Your data is the product, but you have no control over its use or the content you see.\n- Platforms like Facebook and TikTok own your graph and optimize for ad revenue, not user value.\n- Zero portability: Your follower list and reputation are locked in, creating high switching costs.\n- Algorithmic bias creates echo chambers and manipulates attention for profit.

On-chain social graphs like Lens Protocol and Farcaster treat social connections as public, portable assets. Your followers and content are NFTs you own.\n- Composability: Any app (e.g., Phaver, Orb) can build on your graph, enabling permissionless innovation.\n- Verifiable Reputation: On-chain activity (e.g., POAPs, Gitcoin Passport) provides a trust layer algorithms can't fake.\n- User-Curated Feeds: Discovery shifts from a central algorithm to user-run curation markets and decentralized ranking.

Web3 introduces economic primitives that align user, creator, and curator incentives, replacing ad-based models.\n- Creator Monetization: Direct tipping, subscription NFTs, and token-gated communities replace platform-dependent ad shares.\n- Curator Earnings: Protocols like Revert Finance enable revenue sharing for good signal, rewarding quality discovery.\n- Advertiser Access: Transparent, user-permissioned ad slots (via Data Unions or ERC-6551 tokens) replace surveillance capitalism.

Platforms like Facebook and TikTok optimize for engagement, not user value. This creates a zero-sum game where user attention is the commodity.

• ~70% of platform revenue comes from selling targeted ads against your graph.
• Algorithms promote divisive content, creating filter bubbles and societal friction.
• Users have zero portability; your network and influence are locked-in assets.

Protocols like Lens Protocol and Farcaster decouple social identity from applications. Your followers, posts, and interactions are NFTs or signed messages on a decentralized network.

• True composability: Any app (e.g., Lenster, Orb) can plug into your graph, fostering innovation.
• User-as-Platform: Monetize your audience directly via subscriptions, NFTs, or token-gated communities.
• Anti-fragile networks: Censorship resistance and permanent data availability via Arweave or IPFS.

With an open social graph, the algorithm becomes a competitive service. Think Uniswap for content curation.

• Curator DAOs and staking mechanisms (see Farcaster's Frames) allow communities to signal and surface quality.
• Developers can build niche ranking models that compete on transparency and user alignment.
• This shifts power from a single corporate AI to a marketplace of discoverability protocols.

Lens's follow NFT is a primitive that turns social connections into programmable assets. This enables novel economic models impossible in Web2.

• Revenue sharing: Automatically split revenue from a minted post with your followers via the NFT.
• Governance delegation: Use your follower graph as a sybil-resistant reputation layer for DAOs like Aavegotchi.
• Graph-based access control: Token-gate communities or content based on the depth of your social connections.

Web3 graphs provide a cryptographically verifiable history of interactions. This is the foundation for solving crypto's identity problem.

• Proof-of-Personhood projects like Worldcoin can integrate with social graphs to filter bots.
• On-chain credit scores emerge from transaction and social history, usable by DeFi protocols like Aave.
• Advertisers pay users directly for attention, verified via smart contracts, eliminating middlemen.

The endgame is a user-owned social layer that becomes as fundamental as Ethereum is for finance. It rewires the internet's economic model.

• Social DeFi: Use your reputation as collateral. Borrow against your Lens profile's influence.
• Cross-protocol discovery: Your Farcaster graph recommends relevant DAO proposals or NFT collections.
• The algorithm is dethroned: Value accrues to the user and the open protocol, not a corporate intermediary.

Web2 platforms like Facebook and TikTok own your social graph and optimize for engagement-at-all-costs, creating filter bubbles and opaque content distribution. Builders are at the mercy of platform policy changes and ~30% platform fees on creator revenue.

• Zero Portability: Your follower graph and reputation are locked in.
• Ad-Driven Incentives: The platform's profit motive directly conflicts with user experience and truth.

Protocols like Lens Protocol and Farcaster decouple the social graph from the application layer. Your identity and connections become NFTs or on-chain state, usable across any client app.

• Build Once, Deploy Everywhere: A new social app can bootstrap a user base from day one by reading an existing graph.
• Monetization Sovereignty: Creators can implement direct subscriptions, NFT-gated content, and own their customer relationship, bypassing intermediary fees.

With an open social graph, the algorithm becomes a competitive service, not a monopoly. Users or communities could subscribe to curation algorithms from Curio, Karma3 Labs, or custom DAO-curated feeds.

• Transparent Logic: Algorithms can be verifiable and even forkable.
• Stake-for-Quality: Reputation systems like Farcaster's Frames or on-chain engagement can power spam-resistant, value-aligned discovery.

The value accrual shifts from the monolithic application to the protocol and data layers. This mirrors the shift from AOL to the open internet.

• Protocol Tokens: Value captures the utility of the graph network (e.g., storage, curation, governance).
• Data Indexers & APIs: Services like The Graph for social data become critical infrastructure, generating predictable, fee-based revenue.

Current limitations are ~$0.01 transaction costs and UX complexity. The winning stack will abstract this away.

• L2 & Alt-L1s: Social-specific chains like DeSo or high-throughput L2s are mandatory.
• Sponsored Transactions & Session Keys: Projects like Biconomy and ERC-4337 wallets enable gasless interactions, mimicking Web2 ease.

An open social graph enables native Web3 business models. Your on-chain reputation becomes collateral for under-collateralized lending. Social communities become the distribution layer for NFT drops and token launches.

• Social DeFi: Use your follower count as a credibility score for creditworthiness.
• Integrated Commerce: Platforms like Paragraph enable newsletters with built-in NFT minting and token-gated access, collapsing marketing, community, and sales into one flow.