Recently, the concept of SocialFi has become popular, and Friend.tech has quickly led to multiple similar 'copycat' (seems to be preferred term within the industry) and has become the recent hot topic in the web3 spaces.
Is Friend.tech a social network?
Returning to our real life, a simple question, 'Can money buy friendship?' In real life, money can provide material convenience and enjoyment, but it cannot buy true friendship. True friendship is built on mutual understanding, support, and trust, and cannot be replaced by money. Money can bring superficial friendliness, but true friendship requires more effort and sincerity.
The long-lasting social relationships are more like PoW (Proof of Work) because they require continuous effort and commitment to maintain and develop. Just like PoW requires miners to continuously compute and verify transactions, social relationships also require constant communication and interaction from both parties in order to remain stable and healthy. Only through the test of time and effort can these relationships truly become strong and lasting.
The relationship between business partners may be more like PoS (Proof of Stake), because such relationships are usually based on mutual trust and common interests, just like the proof of stake in PoS. In business cooperation, both parties need to demonstrate their value and contribution to gain recognition and trust from each other, thus establishing a stable partnership. This relationship is similar to the mechanism where those who hold more tokens in PoS are more likely to be selected as validators, as they demonstrate their investment and commitment to the network.
What can be bought with money may not really be considered as social relationships. What are 'identity' and 'status' in similar social scenarios? We are often influenced by various commercial means, such as various common 'VIP cards'. Are they symbols of 'VIP'? Actually, they are not. It's only a certificate for 'customer loyalty programs', just to let the merchants know how much revenue you have contributed to them, so as to encourage you to spend more money. In fact, any form of 'identity' that you can obtain by simply spending money (whether by direct purchase or by following their programs) may not be considered as a status, but only a superficial symbol. True status and identity are reflected through personal achievements, moral character, and social status, not obtained through purchasing power. Therefore, we should not place excessive importance on material symbols such as 'VIP cards', but rather focus on our own actual value and contributions.
To summarize, Friend.tech is not a conventional social network, but as it say, 'existence is reasonable.' However, it offers a new way for Ponzi enthusiasts, those fantasizing about getting rich quick, and narcissistic individuals to connect, communicate, and share, albeit with different functionalities and purposes compared to traditional social networks. This could also be seen as a form of new development.
People are monkeys seeking status (Status-Seeking Monkeys).
This reminds me of an article I liked in the past about social networks, Status as a Service.
There is a Chinese version here:
This article is very long, but the views are worth reading. It could be interesting to combine the views in this article with thinking about the current state of Friend.tech. When writing this article, ICOs were popular, so the author specifically mentioned the relationship between social networks and ICOs, which can be seen as a prophecy of web3 social.
1. Every social network will release a new form of social capital.
2. You must present a proof of work (POW) to obtain a token.
3. Over time, mining tokens on each social network will become increasingly difficult.
4. Many people do not understand or are unwilling to look at social networks and cryptocurrencies.
This paragraph is actually very interesting. For friend.tech, the main method to obtain social capital on this network is to sell enough keys and enable people to hold them, so that one can obtain a higher price. It would be interesting to read this in combination with the recent event held by Wang Feng, an enthusiastic supporter of Friend.tech.