Friend.Tech collaborators booted from chatrooms

Two collaborators on the Friend.Tech platform, known as YieldBouncer and Salience, reportedly lose chat access following their involvement in an aggregator tool.

Friend.Tech, a decentralized social platform built atop a layer-2 network Base, reportedly banned two accounts from using the chat feature. 

The owners of these accounts, identified as YieldBouncer and Salience on X, pointed to their aggregators as the possible reason behind Friend Tech’s decision.

According to Salience, the user found themselves barred from chatrooms shortly after teaming up with YieldBouncer and contributing to a Friendbook tool. YieldBouncer’s Friendbook “mirrors” otherwise private chats and allows anyone to access this content for free.

At press time, Salience noted that they reached out to Friend.Tech’s team via multiple platforms. The matter remained unresolved for now. 

It's a shame that the team completely ignored outreach from one of the top users and advocates of the platform.

Selectively banning an aggregator but allowing others is BS.

The least the team could do is respond to Sal's and issue their stand behind aggregations and mirrors. https://t.co/R7G3rI7Ctk

— Yield Bouncer (@YieldBouncer) September 18, 2023

YieldBouncer scrutinized the app’s creators for treating some aggregators differently from others in a post on X.

In a tweet on Sept. 15, the user also said some top Friend.Tech accounts were indeed aggregators, arguing that policies on such tools and indexes were unclear.

“The irony: two out of the top five accounts on FT are aggregators. Clearly, FB wasn’t the only one to think that content should be more accessible to others. It seems like my mistake was not charging everyone for it.”

YieldBouncer on X

Community split over Friend.Tech mirror apps

While YieldBouncer insists that Friend.Tech unfairly handled the issue, other users shared contrasting views and opined that this outcome was inevitable. 

One user, DtDcTr, drew comparisons to other paid platforms like OnlyFans, while another user said YieldBouncer’s tool “eroded the basic value” of Friend.Tech’s platform.

The issue is not whether you charged for it or not, it erodes the basic value of the keys; if everyone could access content without needing keys that hurts key values and hence TVL.

As a builder myself its often a dilemma; we want to enable other builders too but we have to…

— murloc (@0xmurloc) September 15, 2023

Friend.Tech is a mobile-only social network built using blockchain technology and decentralized finance (defi) solutions. The app allows users to buy keys that afford access to private chatrooms or alpha. 

Since its debut on Base in August 2023, the social finance platform has raked in millions in fees and total value locked (TVL). Bot operators also gathered a hefty $2 million in profits from trading keys shortly after pseudonymous developer Racer launched the app.

Friend.Tech boasts north of $36 million in TVL, per DeFiLlama. The app generated the third-highest fees in the last 24 hours.