What is Friend.tech?

In August 2023, a new social media platform was launched called friend.tech. While site membership quickly rose, it has since leveled off, leaving many people wondering just what is friend.tech? And should they make an account?

Here at MintDice.com, we don’t have all the answers just yet, but we have investigated this new platform and discovered some information. Read on to learn all about friend.tech and what it means for the future of social media.

What is Friend.tech?

Friend.tech is a decentralized social network, which is nothing like Mastodon. Well, maybe it’s a little like Mastodon in that it is decentralized and is meant to connect people to one another socially via posting content. However, it deviates widely from traditional social media.

Friend.tech is an app that tokenizes social media. Meaning you can use the app to buy shares of someone's social media account or sell shares of yours using cryptocurrency as payment.

This might sound a little confusing, but it is basically the same thinking that is behind an NFT. Instead of selling a picture of a monkey for crypto, influencers can sell shares of their social media to followers.

Those who purchase a tokenized account are granted access to special member-only chats and features. While it is up to the owner of a social media account to set exact rules, some have chosen to use the tokenization of their platform like governance tokens, allowing those who buy them to also vote on the content they release on their platform.

Related: Mastodon: An Open-Source, Uncensored Social Media App

Who Invented Friend.tech?

Friend.tech was created by a couple of Twitter (now X) users, oxRacerAlt and Shrimppepe, who have developed several different ideas together over the years. It is unclear if they developed the app on their own or had the help of other developers.

Is Friend.tech a Good App?

To anyone unfamiliar with asset tokenization or social media, the idea of tokenizing social media might be weird. The underlying truth is that tokenizing social media gives power back to the people, and thus it is inherently good for all people.

Currently, if you are on an app like Instagram or Facebook, you don’t have to pay to use it. Many people assume this is good, but in reality, your information is sold by the owners of these apps when you use them(to keep them “free”), meaning even though you don’t pay dollars, you pay for your use of them in lack of privacy.

Meanwhile, the company behind these social media apps rakes in the cash from ad revenue—revenue they obtained from selling your information. Influencers receive a small portion of this as a thanks for making content, while Meta makes off like a bandit with millions of dollars.

By creating a platform where users can tokenize their own profiles, you, the creator, will get money back directly for having a lot of followers—and no one else makes money off of your content. Not only that, but on Instagram and YouTube, you must be VERY famous to get paid. Friend.tech allows anyone with a profile to be paid for their content, balancing the power in a way no other social media app has ever done.

Why Didn’t Friend.tech Take Off?

Unfortunately, those influencers who make millions off these platforms, and the platform owners, don’t want to let go of their cash cow, leading many to speak out against the platform, or discourage users from signing up, which is one of the reasons the platform had an initial spike in users, but didn’t continue its growth trajectory.

Plus, anytime there is a new social media platform, it is never fun when it first takes off. Imagine signing up to find out none of your friends or family have profiles? Exactly, you would leave quickly and probably not refer other people. 

This is an unfortunate hump with starting a social media app that they must all overcome, as there is no way for it to immediately take off unless it is perpetuated by an already existing app (like Threads with Instagram).

The founders behind friend.tech tried to overcome this by hiring social media influencers to speak about the project. This brought in several initial people signing up, but, like anything else, the popularity dropped off as the influencers stopped speaking about it.

Related: The Failure of Monetizing Social Media Blockchains

Should You Buy/Download Friend.tech?

We think that the idea of tokenized social media is brilliant, as it can allow new influencers to get some much-needed funding and allow social media legends to share their earnings with those who invest with them. BUT, we have some serious concerns about whether other individuals will enjoy the app.

First and foremost, people are greedy by nature. This means that anyone who is already successful on a social media platform is unlikely to sell shares of their profile. Plus, anyone who thinks they can make it on their own, is unlikely to need to investment of selling their profiles to shareholders because the overhead for a social media account is already quite low. Therefore, those who are very famous on other apps are unlikely to join friend.tech unless their popularity falls—as they won’t want to sell shares of their profiles.

And this isn’t just a wild guess at the aspects of humanity. While friend.tech was hugely popular the first week after its launch, by the end of week two, the popularity of the platform had already fallen. It is currently unclear why friend.tech didn’t take off, but other crypto news websites conclude that the platform, while a great idea, is poorly managed by greedy individuals.

Does this mean using friend.tech is unsafe? Not necessarily, but it does make us a little hesitant to get involved, especially since the product is unproven so far. But, if you believe in the power of tokenized social media, you could benefit from using friend.tech early on, just be cautious with how much you invest initially until you are sure it is the right choice for you.

Overall, it’s hard to say the direction friend.tech will go, as the product was only launched a few weeks ago. Maybe it’s the next big thing, maybe it isn’t, either way you’ll just have to wait and see!

You May Also Enjoy: How to Tokenize an Asset

This article was brought to you by the BitRocket Social Crash Game on MintDice. Originally posted to MintDice.com.