Love vs. fame: A framework for social applications

The article argues that social apps should be classified on a spectrum from love, meaning deepening connections with people one already knows, to fame, meaning discovering creators and reach. It says the dominant advertising model pushes platforms toward fame because uncapped network effects let them scale user attention and revenue, while love products often rely on subscriptions. It presents crypto as a way for love-based, smaller communities to be monetized, citing Nouns DAO and FWB shared treasuries, and proposes "proof-of-first" status games as a low-barrier alternative to money-based ones, using Sound.xyz's "Earliest" profile view as an example.