usersteen.eth

i'm going to talk about 'user-owned distribution networks', 'software as art', and 'tokens as social networks' over and over. could not be more zag, but that's pure opportunity. i'd rather try to build the future than fight in overcrowded, dying coliseums. i'm already living in an aesthetic ethereum

There is a collective vision here that will be glorious when, not if, it is realized

our industry (in particular) rewards (online) social status (attention) more than anything. people who were early, people who have capital, people who make noise, people who have connections. they reap regardless of their impact and intent. again and again. the result is cultural and technical stagnation. our social networks aren't interested in surfacing quality, and there's no incentive, let alone mechanic, for users to curate. venture scale conditions won't allow any other system design (actually not true, but it's the belief). user-owned distribution networks are the future of social networks/media and it's so obvious. incumbents can either facilitate their creation and make bank in the process, or get left behind. you think these companies are too big to fail? their overhead is unbelievable and unsustainable. their runway always has an expiration date. i've always hated the npc slur; it's rise is a disease. it's rise is because companies treat users like npcs and we all start to act that way too.

we're in a very interesting time for social media in that founders/teams are actively gaslighting their users while they struggle to validate business decisions. this all comes back to venture scale requirements and/or greed. these people are too smart to believe what they're saying.

Quite simply, the capital in the space is poorly allocated. Particularly around creativity (which is hella broad). You will start to see @oeth.eth roll out $oETH grants to those building an aesthetic ethereum. It's not worth much right now, but one day you'll look at the holder network and say, shit, this is pure signal. You'll want to be a part of and support that network. There's so much talent here I could throw darts blindfolded and execute the strategy halfway decently. If you know me, you know I don't throw darts blindfolded. What I'm building is for people, and because of that I'm not building it alone.

The problem with the base/farcaster/zora ecosystem is: The products built for the mega-vague "trader" audience are the opposite of dogfed. We have large-enough sample size to conclude that these teams are not using their own products. How often is [founder/team member] actually "trading"? We can link this to content coins, creator coins, solana coins, futures, whatever. You can blame the assets, UX, or overall premise and vaguery of the "trader" persona. UXR might be a good idea, believe it or not. Many insights to be found, but I'll spoil a cluster that challenges the "trader" moniker: Most people are more interested in longer-term assets. They want to buy something, enjoy the emotional or physical benefits of holding it OUTSIDE of price, and just friggin chill. I know, this is very upsetting news. How can we possibly survive facilitating this lower volume game? This is a fear-based mindset. First of all, you'll have more customers with more consistent volume over time. Second, short-term players will STILL participate. There are so many layers to this insight, and other design spaces too, but I believe longer-term assets are the best place to start bc this pivot wouldn't require starting from scratch.

Building a personal os and personal website have to be two of the highest leverage vibe code projects; highly recommend everyone start or get to these two. Huge learning reps, single-user maintenance, easily and infinitely improvable. Evergreen. Not to mention the value of the software itself.

at this point in the creative journey, there's no more gratifying feeling than building software. when it's time to make some visual art, it will be significantly influenced in ways i'm excited to discover and experiment with. the framework is somewhere between sculpting and architecture. legos but with forms that aren't necessarily so rigid.

first hackathon today and finished my personal os. may publish a public version at some point, or at least a walkthrough vid. more important is that it helps me stay organized and creates new, positive feedback loops. of nearly equal importance, huge reps that will benefit @oeth.eth. after some catching up with ops, improving performance, and adjusting some mechanics, i'll get back to the app itself. likely next step is a working, responsive web app. tbd on wallet connect, but it will add a higher-touch desktop experience and significant accessibility.

A lot of face-to-face with many Farcaster friends this week. Has to be the highest concentration network of crypto innovators.

Cast performance is funny. Below is one of the strongest insights I'm building on, but be it Friday timing or whatever, the idea didn't spread. I've learned to continue hammering your best ideas on the feed, even if it feels repetitive. This idea will be the core of the oETH memo/manifesto, so it will get long-form due as well. When it clicks it will CLICK

the thing that most token projects don't lean into enough, and the thing that "appcoin" fails to convey, is that tokens are social networks. "scenecoin" was ahead of its time. now consider tokenized art in this context: art as a social network. that's $oETH.

I've been having multi-account issues with my Farcaster account (plz help someone), and have stayed logged in to @oeth.eth on mobile. Frankly, it's been great for reducing screentime despite the inconvenience. Entirely forgot that I could use the base app until now. Thank goodness the feed makes me want to throw my phone at a wall as soon as I open it. Now I can stay in touch while keeping screentime down.

welcome to the military entertainment complex!

I was away for many months building @oeth.eth, came back with fervor, and was almost immediately taken out of commission by family stuff. Creeping back, but not at full yet. When I was away building, I felt a ton of stress in the way of "I'm not fast enough" etc. Self imposed, but also there were people who lost interest along the way. Now the situation is out of my control, and that stress is back and worse. I trust my skill, insight, and vision, and want to prove myself so badly. If you're following @oeth.eth, and think I ditched or don't know what to do next, that's not the case. I will have updates this week, and more the next. $oETH is my favorite token and it's not remotely close. Bias, sure, but it's the only user-owned distribution network experiment of its kind. And yes, it is made with immense love of art, technology, and people. I don't like getting personal and I'm not looking for sympathy, but I felt the need to explain myself. And maybe to give myself a break. Thanks for listening.

Sorry tech ppl, the only moat is still and forever brand. And by the way, your customers/clients/community/users ultimately steer that ship once it leaves port. UX is your primary control vector. Operations is important, but increasingly commoditized.

gently: zora is spending too much energy on features in pursuit of making it easier to 'discover' and 'trade.' the feed, leaderboard, and new trending sections are null so long as most trades are automated. 2 solutions: - give users automation tooling - give users curation tooling; edge comes through profiles

this is incredible

The agency economy is upon us. If twitter is any indication, 2026 will be a firehose of "look at this thing I made", "here's how you can do it too", and so forth. Personal software will result in faster innovation cycles, while keeping individuals more siloed. This will evolve into @yancey's realm of "groupcore." It won't just be personalized software for me, but for you and me. This will not only lead to distribution of the most useful ideas and highest quality media, but a newfound sense of agency within the context of community.

This (CLI/terminal) is going to be a leading design meta in 2026. After a couple of CLI experiments, and lots of time with Claude Code, I can confidently say this is the best starting point for UX design I have encountered. Words, especially verbs, come into focus and information architecture can easily be iterated