# On Hubs

Source: https://dwr.email/on-hubs

## Summary

The article argues that Hubs on the Farcaster network will run without direct economic incentives, and that no rewards will be paid to operators. It cites more than 10,000 Hubs on the network but says that number is artificially high because many operators may be hoping for a future reward. It states that rewards are impractical because there is no reliable way to prove a Hub was honest and performant over time, and that Bitcoin and Ethereum do not pay node operators, with Coinbase running BTC and ETH nodes for years before staking. The original goal of about 100 independent, good Hubs is said to be achievable through companies with an economic interest in network access and altruistic individuals.

## Article

1. We've said from the beginning, people will run Hubs without direct economic incentives. This has proven correct. 10K+ Hubs on the network.

2. This number is artificially high as there are likely many Hub operators hoping for a future economic reward. There will not be a reward.

3. Rewards don't make sense as there's no good way to prove that a Hub was honest and performant for a long period of time. Any deterministic system tied to an economic reward would create an incentive for fraud to fake running a Hub to get paid.

3. This is why Bitcoin and Ethereum do not pay node operators. Economic rewards are independent from running a node. Coinbase ran BTC / ETH nodes for years (pre-staking).

4. Our original goal was get to ~100 independent, good Hubs. Given network size, activity, number of companies building on Farcaster, seems like that number is achievable between 1) companies with an economic interest in access to the network and 2) altruistic individuals for hobbyist or ideological reasons.

## Comments

**timdaub.eth**: In my view, it misses the forest for the trees. This is a message to idiot airdrop farmers, who now pay for a cheap Neynar tier to "run their own hub" in the hope that they'll be rewarded. All the while, the "we won't airdrop you" message doesn't serve much of a purpose. The hope is probably that it's a low-effort strategy to decrease hub-running in the network because it causes technical issues in the algorithm.

The hubs are, from what I can tell, centralized, as Warpcast is really the majority source of content. So, the Warpcast operators can always dictate what version to run, what to store, etc.

Honestly, you gotta be a real dummy to run a hub to mine the airdrop and not even know how the algorithm works. I believe it was Charlie Munger who said that you should always invest within your circle of confidence. But considering that none of these ten thousand people do this because surely they don't know about this feature of the algorithm, they must all be idiots, and they deserve to lose money that they've spent on running these hubs.

**timdaub.eth**: Posted more about this on X: https://x.com/timdaub/status/1811302920698097972

**thatalexpalmer.eth**: I liked that post and wanted to collect it (just as a memento) but it was 1 ETH to mint. I also liked your comment and want to collect it but I can't.