In Web2 (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube), you do not own your followers. If the platform bans you, your business goes to zero. In Web3 (SocialFi), your social graph lives on the blockchain, owned by your wallet.
How SocialFi Protocols Work
Protocols like Lens or Farcaster act as the underlying infrastructure. If a specific app built on top of them shuts down or changes its algorithm, you simply take your wallet (and all your followers/content) to a different app built on the same protocol.
Financializing The Social Graph
Early iterations like friend.tech proved the appetite for social tokenization by allowing users to buy and sell 'keys' (shares) of a creator's profile, granting access to private chats and tying the creator's social clout directly to a financial asset.
Today, creators implement micro-paywalls through crypto tipping, NFT gating for exclusive content communities, and automated revenue sharing for collaborative posts.