you either incentivise users or you won't have any

let me be ABUNDANTLY clear:

no normal person regularly tests new apps. it is a very small group of early adopters that do that, but 99% of people won't waste their time trying random apps by random startups

in crypto, the ONLY reason - and i really mean ONLY reason - for anyone to try your ramshackle app is for personal financial gain, e.g. via an airdrop or rewards for providing liquidity. this behaviour was heavily encouraged during the airdrop meta to the point where projects needed to airdrop 10 - 20% of their total supply or they feared getting cancelled

infinex is a great example. founder kain was speaking out against predatory airdrop farmers, he decided to not give them incentives and as a result infinex is DEAD now even though it's a top 10 app this cycle. he didn't understand the game, he only saw one side of the argument, the founder's perspective.

his argument was:"why should we incentivise users who are predatory? we are going to not reward anyone, focus on delivering a great app and just hope that organic users will come."

nigga

there are hardly ANY organic users. people don't want to try new crypto apps in their free time, they want to hang out with friends, scroll social media, do sports, or literally anything BUT try out crypto apps

now that the airdrop meta is significantly diminished, i see founders crawling out of their holes and thinking that they can get users without incentivization again. to those founders i say:

FORGET IT

you either reward users or you won't have any