NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / May 31, 2024 / Bronstein, Gewirtz &amp; Grossman, LLC, a nationally recognized law firm, notifies investors that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Fastly, Inc. (&quot;Fastly&quot; or &quot;the Company&quot;) (NYSE:FSLY) and certain of its officers.

FSLY INVESTOR ALERT: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman LLC Announces that Fastly Inc. Investors Can Join the Class Action Lawsuit

Fastly (NYSE:FSLY), a provider of an edge cloud platform for content delivery with reduced lagging, recently reported its first quarter results for 2024. The compan...

Fastly’s (NYSE:FSLY) Forward Guidance is a Cause for Caution - TipRanks.com

The stock is now off close to 90% from all-time highs.

Why Shares of Fastly Stock Collapsed This Week @themotleyfool #stocks $FSLY

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Fastly, JFrog, Shake Shack, Zebra Tech, West Pharma, AppLovin, Super Micro, 
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Management's 2024 guidance has triggered a surge in bearish sentiment about the content delivery network operator.

Why Fastly Stock Is Crashing Today @themotleyfool #stocks $FSLY

Cloud computing services provider Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) plunged in pre-market trading after the company’s outlook disappointed investors. The company expects Q1 revenu...

Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) Plunges after Disappointing Outlook - TipRanks.com

Fastly shares tanked Thursday following fourth quarter earnings and guidance failed to impress the market. Read more here.

Fastly shares implode following Q4 earnings, guidance; analysts remain optimistic | Seeking Alpha

Fastly, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.01, expectations were $-0.02. Fastly, Inc.

Fastly, Inc. (NYSE:FSLY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript - Insider Monkey

Fastly

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We've recently announced that WunderGraph is now fully open source. Today, we'd like to explain how you can leverage our API Developer Framework to add Edge Caching to your GraphQL APIs without locking yourself into a specific vendor. Caching GraphQL on the Edge should be vendor-agnostic. Services like Akamai and GraphCDN / Stellate offer proprietary solutions to solving this problem.
We'll compare the different approaches and their tradeoffs. Why did we create proprietary GraphQL CDN solutions A good question to start with is why we've created proprietary GraphQL CDN solutions in the first place. Most GraphQL implementations ignore how the web works The problem with most GraphQL implementations is that they don't really use the "platform" they are operating on. By platform, I mean the web, or more specifically HTTP and the REST constraints. The web has a lot to offer if you're using it in the right way. If read requests (Queries) were using the GET verb, combined with Cache-Control Headers and ETag, Browsers, CDNs, Cache Servers like Varnish, Nginx, and many other tools could handle Caching out of the box. You wouldn't really need a service that understands GraphQL. However, the reality is that most GraphQL APIs make you send Queries over HTTP POST. Cache-Control Headers and ETags don't make sense in this case, as all participants on the web think we're trying to "manipulate" something. So, we've created Edge Caching solutions that rewrite HTTP POST to GET and are capable of invalidating in very smart ways. By analyzing Queries and Mutations they're able to build up a cache and invalidate Objects as mutations flow through the system. Limitations and Problems of GraphQL CDNs / Edge Caches A GraphQL CDN creates a secondary source of truth As discussed in the constraint by Fielding, intermediaries can be used to implement a shared cache to improve the latency of requests. The problem I see with "smart" GraphQL Edge Caches is that they look into the GraphQL Operations to figure out what to cache and what to invalidate. Some GraphQL CDN implementations even allow you to use their API to invalidate objects. Layered System What sounds very smart creates a huge problem, you're building a second source of truth. Before using the GraphQL CDN, all you've had to do is implement your resolvers. Now, you've got to think about how to invalidate the CDN. Even worse, you're now programming against a single vendor and their implementation, coupling your application to a single service provider. You can't just switch easily from one GraphQL CDN provider to another. Contrary to REST/HTTP APIs, there's no standard on how to Cache GraphQL APIs, hence every implementation will be different. Another issue is that we're creating a secondary source of truth. Imagine we're putting a GraphQL CDN in front of the GraphQL API of GitHub to cache the Issues for a repository. If we're using "smart" Cache invalidation using Mutations, we're not able to update the cache if a user is bypassing our CDN and uses the GitHub API directly. A GraphQL CDN really only works if 100% of the traffic flows through the system. Your GraphQL Edge Cache won't work on localhost or in your CI/CD Testing takes up a huge part of software development, and we definitely want to have a great Developer Experience when building our APIs. Using a proprietary, cloud-only, Caching solution means that we're not able to test it locally or from within our Continuous Integration systems. You'll be developing on your local machine without the CDN, only to find out that something behaves weirdly when you're using the CDN in production. If we were using standardized caching directives, we'd be able to use any Cache Server, like Nginx or Varnish within our CI/CD pipeline to test our APIs. Proprietary GraphQL CDNs impose a vendor lock-in problem As mentioned earlier, there's no specification for how GraphQL Caching should work. Every implementation is different, so you're always tied to a specific vendor. They might get broke, they might get acquired, they might cancel their service, and they might change their pricing model. In any case, it's a risk that needs to be managed. A GraphQL CDN can introduce cross-origin requests Depending on the setup, adding a GraphQL CDN to your architecture could mean that your browser-based applications have to make cross-origin requests. That is, when your application is running on and your GraphQL CDN runs on , the browser will always make an extra Preflight request. It's possible to cache the Preflight request, but this still means that we'd have to do at least one extra request on the initial page load. example.com example.cdn.com A GraphQL CDN might not work well for authenticated Requests with Server Side Rendering (SSR) Let's say your application requires your users to be logged in, but you still want to be able to apply to cache. Aside from that, you'd also like to implement Server-Side Rendering (SSR). In the ideal scenario, you'd have your users log into your authentication server, which sets a cookie on your apex domain so that you're logged in on all subdomains. If your CDN is running on a different domain, it's going to be impossible to server-side render a page as the browser will not send the user's cookie to the CDN domain. Luckily, some providers offer custom domains, so cookie-based authentication might still work for you. Invalidating Deeply Nested GraphQL Operations might not work Here's an example of a GraphQL Operation that invalidates easily. mutation UpdateProfile {
    updateProfile(update: {id: 1, name: "Jannik"}) {
        id
        name
        friendsCount
    }
} If you've previously Queried the user with id 1, you can invalidate all records with that id and invalidate the following Query: query {
    profile(id: 1){
        id
        name
        friendsCount
    }
} Let's make it a bit more complex and query for all your friends: query {
    me {
       friends {
            id
            name
        }
    }
} Now, you made some good friends at the last conference. Let's add them: mutation AddFriend {
    addFriends(where: {user:{hasConnection: {conferences: {id: {eq: 7}}}}}){
        id
        name
    }
} We've now added all users as friends that had visited a conference whose id equals 7. At this point, we don't get back all the data when we query again for all your friends because the cache can't know that the mutation has invalidated the cache for the query. addFriends friends At this point, you've got to start adding response tagging, surrogate keys, or analyzing the GraphQL return types to make your invalidation strategy "smarter". We'll pick up this topic again after the benefits. Benefits of using a GraphQL CDN / Edge Cache When there's a cost, there are also benefits! Using a GraphQL CDN means, you don't have to change much of your application. In an ideal scenario, you simply change the URL of the GraphQL Server and everything should work. You also don't have to deploy and configure any tooling. You're buying a ready-to-use service that just works. Despite the problems discussed earlier, a GraphQL CDN can probably improve the performance of many applications. When not to use a GraphQL CDN As discussed in the section on Cache Invalidation, building a smart CDN service that doesn't know anything about your GraphQL Backend is actually extremely hard. The problem lies in the fact that the Backend is the source of truth, but doesn't share all this information with the Cache. In fact, if you're running into such issues where invalidation becomes hard, you might want to apply caching at a different level, inside the resolvers, or even one level below, at the entity level, using the DataLoader pattern. Additionally, if your data is expected to change frequently, it might make not much sense for you to cache at the Edge. Another big underrated flaw is that the invalidation of a distributed cache is eventually consistent. This means you serve stale content after a mutation for a short period of time. If you don't respect that in your architecture it has the potential to break the business logic of clients. Client (US) -> Query all posts to fill the cache
Client (US) -> Run mutation to update the post with ID:1
System fires a web-hook to a third-party service in FRA
Client (FRA) -> Query all posts -> stale content This is not GraphQL specific but with HTTP Caching the semantics are better understood. In summary, don't use a GraphQL CDN if you need write-after-read consistency. If your requirement is to support write-after-read consistency, there are multiple solutions to the problem. One is to not cache at the Edge, but rather at the application layer. In this case, you'd trade latency for consistency, which can be a good trade. Another way of solving the problem is by distributing the state across the edge and sharding the data based on location. This model of sharding is not always possible, but if the shared state is only used across groups of users in the same location, this solution could work very well. One example of this is Cloudflare Workers + Durable Objects, which gives you a simple Key-Value store that is persisted in a specific location, meaning that all users close to that one location can have a consistent state at low latency. When a GraphQL Edge Cache makes the most sense If you've got a single GraphQL API, and this API is the only API your frontend is talking to, you fully own this API and no traffic is bypassing your Cache, then such a CDN might actually make sense. Otherwise, I doubt you get the results you're expecting, especially not with the extra costs discussed earlier. WunderGraph - An Alternative Approach to GraphQL Edge Caching without vendor lock-in We've discussed the pros and cons of GraphQL CDNs, now I'd like to propose another approach that makes you stay vendor independent. When it comes to solving problems, sometimes it's smart to be dumb. I think a Cache can be a lot smarter when it's dumb and playing by the rules of the web, and that's exactly what we're doing with WunderGraph. and can be deployed everywhere. Our solution is Open Source How does it work? I've been working with GraphQL for many years now, and I've realized that when we deploy an application that uses GraphQL APIs, I've never seen the application change the GraphQL Operations at runtime. What applications do at runtime is change the Variables, but the Operations usually stay static. So, what we've done is, we've created a GraphQL to JSON-RPC compiler, which treats GraphQL Operations like "Prepared Statements", you've probably heard of the term from using a database. When first using a SQL statement, you send it to the Database and get back a handle to "execute" it later. Subsequent requests can now execute the Statement just by sending the handle and the variables. This makes the execution a lot faster. Because we're not changing GraphQL Operations at runtime, we can actually do this "compilation" step during development. At the same time, we're replacing HTTP POST for Queries with HTTP GET, while sending the Variables as a Query Parameter. By sending GraphQL Queries via JSON-RPC with HTTP GET,
we're able to automatically enable us to use Cache-Control Headers and ETags. And that's the whole magic of WunderGraph's Caching Story. We don't build a "smart" Cache. We don't cache Objects, and we don't have to build complex invalidation logic. We simply cache the response of unique URLs. For each Operation, you can define if it should be Cached and for how long. If a response might change frequently, you can also set the Cache time to 0, but configure "stale-while-revalidate" to a non-negative number. The client will automatically send the request to the origin with the ETag, the server will either send a refreshed response or 304, not modified. It's a very dumb approach. If the cached value is expired or stale, we're asking the origin if they have an update. Depending on the configuration, that might create a few more requests to the origin, but we're also not creating a second source of truth, or have to deal with the complexity of managing cache invalidation tags for nested objects. It's similar to using Change Data Capture (CDC) as a source for Subscriptions vs. simple Polling. CDC can get extremely complex to get right, while simple server-side Polling might work just fine most of the time. It's simple and robust. There's really not much we've invented here, all this is standard Caching behavior and any service, like Cloudflare, fastly, Varnish or Nginx supports it out of the box. There's a standard for how all the participants of the web treat Cache-Control and ETag headers, we've simply implemented this standard. By removing GraphQL from the equation, we've made it compatible with the web. If you build tools for the web, you should respect how the web is built, otherwise, you're creating more problems than you're solving. Additional Benefits of the WunderGraph GraphQL Caching Approach It's not just CDNs and Servers who understand the Cache-Control and ETag Headers. Browsers also automatically cache and invalidate your responses, without adding a single line of code. Additionally, because we've removed GraphQL from the runtime, we've automatically reduced the attack surface of our application. If our frontend doesn't change GraphQL Queries at runtime, why expose an API that allows you to do so? Limitations of the JSON-RPC Caching Approach One of the limitations of this approach is that we're no longer able to use regular GraphQL Clients, as they'd expect us to send GraphQL Operations over HTTP POST, and Subscriptions over WebSockets. That's not an issue for new projects, but might be a blocker for existing applications. Btw. we've got an internal RFC to add a compatibility mode, allowing e.g. Apollo client / urql, etc. to work with WunderGraph through an Adapter. If you're interested, please let us know. That said, using plain JSON-RPC would be very inconvenient. That's why we're not just compiling GraphQL to JSON RPC, but also generating fully type-safe clients. One such client-side integration is the , making it super easy to use WunderGraph with NextJS, including Server-Side Rendering, Authentication, File Uploads, etc... NextJS package Another limitation, as of now, is that you have to self-host WunderGraph. We're working on a hosted Serverless solution, but as of now, you'd have to deploy and run it yourself. While it might not be super convenient, this also comes with an advantage: WunderGraph is Apache 2.0 licensed, you can run it anywhere. How can you deploy WunderGraph Now that we've discussed the pros and cons of the WunderGraph approach to caching, let's see how we can deploy WunderGraph to achieve good Caching results. First, you don't have to deploy WunderGraph globally. It's possible to run it close to your origin, e.g. the (micro-) services that you'd like to use. In this scenario, it's possible to run WunderGraph as an Ingress to your other services. The architecture of this scenario looks like this: Client -> WunderGraph Server -> Origin Deploy WunderGraph with Nginx or Varnish as an additional Caching Layer If you're deploying WunderGraph close to the origin, it will automatically add the required Cache-Control & ETag Headers. This setup might already be enough for your scenario. However, in some scenarios, you'd like to add another layer of Caching Servers. This could be e.g. a cluster of Nginx or Varnish servers, placed in front of your WunderGraph server. Architecture updated with this scenario: Client -> Cache Server -> WunderGraph Server -> Origin Deploy WunderGraph with Cloudflare or fastly as an Edge Cache Depending on where your users are, a centralized Caching Layer might not be sufficient for your use case. In this scenario, you can use services like Cloudflare (Workers) or fastly, to add a globally distributed GraphQL CDN / Edge Cache. What's important to note here is that you're not tied to a specific solution. As mentioned before, we're using standardized Cache-Control directives, supported by all Cache Server solutions, so you're not tying yourself to a specific vendor. Updated Architecture: Client -> CDN -> WunderGraph Server -> Origin Deploy WunderGraph directly on the Edge, using fly.io Another option is to deploy WunderGraph directly on the Edge, removing the need for an additional Caching Layer. Services like allow you to deploy Containers as close to your users as possible. The architecture of this scenario looks like the following: fly.io Client -> WunderGraph Server (on the Edge) -> Origin Deploying a service on the Edge is not always beneficial There's one important point I'd like to make that applies to all solutions mentioned in this post. If we're deploying a workload on the Edge, this service will be very close to the users, which is generally a good thing. At the same time, depending on where on the "Edge" we're processing a request, there might be a random latency between ~0-300ms to your origin server(s) per roundtrip. If we have to do multiple roundtrips to fetch the data for a single client request, this latency can add up. As you can see, it's not always beneficial to the overall performance to have logic running on the edge. There's one more thing! This solution works for GraphQL, REST, gRPC, and other Protocols as well! You've heard that right. WunderGraph is not just about GraphQL origins. We support a wide array of upstream protocols, like REST, gRPC (coming soon!), and Databases like PostgreSQL, MySQL, Planetscale, etc... WunderGraph ingests all your services and creates a "Virtual Graph", a GraphQL Schema representing all your services. The Caching layer we've described above does not just work for GraphQL origins, but all services that you've added to your Virtual Graph. This means, you're able to apply one unified layer of Authentication, Authorization, and of course Caching to all your APIs. From our experience, it's rarely the case that you're connecting a frontend to a single GraphQL server. Instead, you're probably going to connect it to many services, which is what we're trying to simplify, and caching is one part of the story. Conclusion We've discussed various options to improve application performance with different kinds of Caching systems. There are ready-to-use solutions that come with simplicity but also lock you into specific vendors. With WunderGraph, we're trying to offer an Open Source alternative that's based on standards and implemented by many tools and vendors, so you're able to choose the best-of-breed solution for your situation. If you're looking into adding Caching to your stack, we'd love to talk! or . Join us on Discord connect on Twitter Also published . here

How to Leverage Open Source GraphQL CDN/Edge Cache With Cloudflare, Fastly, and fly.io

On Tuesday evening (8 June, 2021), the unthinkable happened. Internet users around the world found themselves unable to access major online platforms like Amazon, Hulu, CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times, Reddit, Spotify and Twitch, just to name a few, after a cloud computing network run by US-based tech firm, Fastly, was hit by a major software bug. Even the was affected. UK Government’s official website Mind you, we were only a few platforms away from a fully dysfunctional Internet. For instance, if Whatsapp had gone down too, or Telegram, Grab, Uber, Youtube…well, you get the idea. The Power of the Internet In our everyday lives, we take many things for granted. To many of us, things like food security, water security, physical security — they are all a given. So is the Internet. The Internet has become such a staple in our lives that, ironically, we don’t see it anymore. It has become so omnipresent and omnipotent that it has become invisible. It is everywhere and thus, nowhere. That is, until we lose it. When we lose our access to the Internet, all of a sudden — we feel the Internet’s heavy presence (or lack of) in our lives. On Tuesday, we got a very very small taste of that. Beyond leaving a gaping hole in our hearts (and schedules), the incident had severe repercussions for many people. Full-time Twitch streamers momentarily lost their sole sources of income; journalists were unable to get breaking news stories out; people stuck at home due to the pandemic were unable to figure out what was happening in the outside world. Put it another way, we got a very very small taste of the of the Internet. true power Source: https://theconversation.com/ If I were to ask you all to take a step back right now and reflect on how you live your lives on a daily basis, I’d be willing to put a huge chunk of money on the fact that a lot of it would be spent on the Internet. Be it keeping in contact with your colleagues or loved ones, catching up on the events that have happened/are happening around the world, or just doing your job at work — all these activities require the Internet. Heck, you are only able to read this ! because of the Internet We literally our lives on the Internet. live That is truly a sobering and frightening thought, especially in light of the Fastly incident. If our lives are so dependent on the Internet, no single individual, organisation, or institution should have the metaphorical master key to the Internet, ever. On the Centralization of Power On Tuesday evening, all of us were hit by a sudden and unpleasant cognizance that this metaphorical master key One was definitely held by Fastly. may not be so metaphorical after all. If a mere software bug can completely cripple all these huge and powerful Internet platforms that all of us around the world rely so heavily on for our day-to-day undertakings, I shudder to imagine how easy it would be for anyone at Fastly to turn our lives — or even, the world for that matter — upside down. Even though Internet services resumed shortly after the outage, this incident should never be swept under the rug. It has to be scrutinized, dug deeper into, and ultimately, addressed. Our lives should never be the same again. This concept of a master key to the Internet — this form of power, should ever exist. At least, not in the hands of singular entity. never one Therein lies the problem of a centralization of immense influence and/or power: no one should have such a huge say over people’s lives. No one should have the ability to affect people’s lives in such a colossal way. We, as a global populace, should never be beholden to the whims and fantasies of a minority few. Alas, Tuesday night divulged to us that unfortunately, we most certainly are. Too many of us are at the mercy of the Internet, and by extension — entities like Fastly. In many ways, we were lucky that Tuesday’s incident was nothing but a mere accident, a non-malicious mistake made by non-malicious parties; no one at Fastly intentionally and purposefully flipped a switch in the server room to cause chaos around the world — or at least we hope that this was the case. If a malicious actor were to get their hands on such a key, the consequences would be unimaginably dire. In fact, we don’t even have to come up with a fictional scenario to understand how a situation like that could play out. We simply have to travel back in time to the early 2010s. In 2010, the world received a lesson in how vulnerable the contemporary Internet is to centralized top-down control. Faced with ongoing protests organized in large part through social media, the government of Egypt simply turned off the country’s Internet. Thankfully, the move backfired, as it enabled the rest of the world to see how authoritarian the Mubarak regime really was. It was also the spark that incited numerous free speech groups–including the very notorious Anonymous hacker group–to rally behind the protesters in Tahrir Square. Tahrir Square, 2010. Source: http://arabcenterdc.org/ To this day, the chart showing the country’s Internet traffic all but disappear in spite of Mubarak’s flipping of the kill switch, remains one of the most iconic images of the Arab Spring. Internet Traffic Chart. Source: https://journals.openedition.org/ On the Concept of Decentralization In the wake of Mubarak’s decision to hit the kill switch, it seems that a number of activists have begun to rethink their approach to net neutrality. No longer content to lobby those who control the existing Internet, they’re trying to create a new, democratized one. Whether it’s the “Freedom Towers” that could be found at various Occupy protests, or Reddit users’ Darknet plan, there’s an overt and increasing push towards developing decentralized mesh networks as an alternative to the extremely centralized Internet. , many of which can be removed without the network failing. In short, all the devices within such a network will still be able to connect to and chat with each other, even if the Internet connection were to be fully severed. These mesh networks tap into peer-to-peer and distributed systems technologies to allow for a single connection to the Internet to be shared amongst multiple devices Visual Representation of a mesh network topology. Source: https://datarespons.com/ This is the epitome of decentralization, and technologies like these will go (and have gone) a long way in helping the oppressed subvert a central power’s malevolent actions. I mean, if it were not for these mesh networks that enabled the protestors in Tahrir Square to stay connected to the Internet even after it was authoritatively shut down, who knows what Mubarak’s regime might have done to them. This is why I am so against an overt centralization of power, and am such a huge fan and proponent of decentralization. The former enables the abuse of power by a select few agendic actors, whilst the latter diffuses power to the masses, keeping it more accountable. Of course, I am not so extreme to think that we need decentralization in of our lives. In some domains, a centralization of power does serve some substantive purpose, like enabling efficiency or preventing decision gridlocks. every single aspect In many others, however, decentralization would be ideal. For instance, in the realm of politics: we should attempt to achieve a greater balance between the centralization of policy-making power in the hands of a few, and the decentralization of decision-making to the masses. Right now, the scales are largely tipped in favor of the former, which may not be all that great for democracy. Thankfully, new and emerging technologies have rendered decentralization within the said political realm to be very within our grasps. With blockchain technology coming to the fore in recent times, new political forms like a , or have been made possible (I will be discussing these concepts in future articles, so do keep a look-out for them!). liquid democracy quadratic voting-based democracies As technologies considerably improve across the board, so too should our rights to privacy; the former should never come at the expense of the latter. If that were the case, technology will only serve the interests of a minority, to the detriment of the majority. Decentralization is the metaphorical master key that can prevent that, so we need to keep working at it to get it just right. Also published here

Why You Should Care More About The Recent Global Internet Outage

My personal experience with a Telegram game’s founding team. Telegram gaming is flawed- what began as an experiment lacks concrete use cases to thrive. Founders are holding on to vanity metrics to create their own ambitions which majorly benefits them and leaves players unrewarded. Ever since Notcoin gained popularity, followed by Tapswap, and then Hamster Kombat swept the waves with even more virality, millions of non-crypto natives were subtly onboarded into crypto. The wave seems to be gradually fading. There are rumors that Hamster Kombat's claim of 300 million players is exaggerated, and the team behind the project has a history of dishonesty, allegedly having rug-pulled investors in the past with a previous project. Read also: Telegram Games Have Boring Marketing Strategies Another reason why the positive sentiments towards Telegram games have changed is due to low fulfilled expectations tied to airdrops. Many players who invested their time in projects like Pixelverse were disappointed at how ‘unfair’ the airdrop was. Now, this drives a signal to players. As a proponent of mass adoption in crypto, I also understand that many things can go wrong in the early stages, and bad actors can easily exploit the inexperience of newcomers. Notwithstanding, Hamster Kombat has carved a name for itself and has risen to become that Telegram game that is mostly used for reference. So when new Telegram games aspire to go viral, no doubt they admire Hamster’s ‘success story’ even though the project is yet to pivot to the point where it offers utility. I noticed this when speaking with the team behind a 2-month-old gaming project on Telegram. They were eager to gain traction on their app for the sole purpose of enriching their pockets instead of going through the community route. Here's the Story Last week, I had a call with the team behind a Telegram gaming project. Their value proposition includes a unique feature that goes beyond the typical tap-to-earn model. The game has a sticky feature for creators to create some form of degen-related content and then earn rewards in-app for their creativity. But then, I could clearly spot a walking red flag. The team was prioritizing what should have come later. This to me sounded very ridiculous and I'll explain why. The timeline they proposed to attract buyers for their token was unrealistic. They planned to do this within just a few weeks. Take Tapswap, for example—the game has been in its 'mining phase' for six months, and the team is still carefully planning a token launch event that truly benefits their community and likely includes a strong retention strategy. This process takes time; it's not just a perspire-to-aspire kinda thing. Especially since Telegram gaming is still in its early stages, despite the 'success' of Notcoin. The team doesn’t understand how Telegram games work. Currently, Telegram games earn revenue primarily through the traffic they generate, unlike Web2 or Web3 games which have multiple monetization avenues. For this project, being largely interested in making quick cash, I expect them to focus on driving traffic to their game and leverage monetized content platforms like YouTube, similar to how Hamster Kombat does it. But they weren't interested in going through this route. Wrong idea about marketing While discussing with the CEO, I found out he had a shabby idea about marketing which I've paraphrased to mean: “No other Telegram game is doing what we are doing so the project should be able to market itself. We should skip building a community because that takes time, rather we should simply get people to buy our tokens because we don't think the players we have can afford to buy tokens.” Obviously, the team has a clear vision of degens as their target audience and not necessarily onboarding the masses. While this is not a wrong ideal customer profile, there are slim chances of breaking through such a competitive market by merely just having a ‘great idea.’ In marketing, a smaller competitor can often outperform their rivals by having a stronger strategy. It's more about how you say it than what you're saying. They also expressed their desire to attract quick buyers who would stay long-term—a brazen irony! I did my best to make them understand the impossibility of this. Skipping community building and expecting to have loyal supporters for your project is pure fiction—a mere daydream. It's like shielding your plants from sunlight and rain, yet still expecting them to thrive and remain lush and green. Telegram gaming is still in its early phase, despite the number of games already available. You have the opportunity to stand out by breaking the jinx—being transparent with your approach and quickly pivoting when necessary for the benefit of your community members. Send an email to Web3.talez@gmail.com to get started. My personal experience with a Telegram game’s founding team. My personal experience with a Telegram game’s founding team. Telegram gaming is flawed- what began as an experiment lacks concrete use cases to thrive. Telegram gaming is flawed- what began as an experiment lacks concrete use cases to thrive. Founders are holding on to vanity metrics to create their own ambitions which majorly benefits them and leaves players unrewarded. Founders are holding on to vanity metrics to create their own ambitions which majorly benefits them and leaves players unrewarded. Ever since Notcoin gained popularity, followed by Tapswap, and then Hamster Kombat swept the waves with even more virality, millions of non-crypto natives were subtly onboarded into crypto . Notcoin Tapswap, Hamster Kombat millions of non-crypto natives were subtly onboarded into crypto millions of non-crypto natives were subtly onboarded into crypto The wave seems to be gradually fading. There are rumors that Hamster Kombat's claim of 300 million players is exaggerated, and the team behind the project has a history of dishonesty, allegedly having rug-pulled investors in the past with a previous project. Read also: Telegram Games Have Boring Marketing Strategies Read also: Telegram Games Have Boring Marketing Strategies Telegram Games Have Boring Marketing Strategies Telegram Games Have Boring Marketing Strategies Another reason why the positive sentiments towards Telegram games have changed is due to low fulfilled expectations tied to airdrops. Many players who invested their time in projects like Pixelverse were disappointed at how ‘unfair’ the airdrop was. Now, this drives a signal to players. Pixelverse As a proponent of mass adoption in crypto, I also understand that many things can go wrong in the early stages, and bad actors can easily exploit the inexperience of newcomers. Notwithstanding, Hamster Kombat has carved a name for itself and has risen to become that Telegram game that is mostly used for reference. So when new Telegram games aspire to go viral, no doubt they admire Hamster’s ‘success story’ even though the project is yet to pivot to the point where it offers utility. Hamster Kombat I noticed this when speaking with the team behind a 2-month-old gaming project on Telegram. They were eager to gain traction on their app for the sole purpose of enriching their pockets instead of going through the community route. Here's the Story Last week, I had a call with the team behind a Telegram gaming project. Their value proposition includes a unique feature that goes beyond the typical tap-to-earn model. The game has a sticky feature for creators to create some form of degen-related content and then earn rewards in-app for their creativity. But then, I could clearly spot a walking red flag. The team was prioritizing what should have come later. This to me sounded very ridiculous and I'll explain why. The timeline they proposed to attract buyers for their token was unrealistic. The timeline they proposed to attract buyers for their token was unrealistic. The timeline they proposed to attract buyers for their token was unrealistic. They planned to do this within just a few weeks. Take Tapswap , for example—the game has been in its 'mining phase' for six months, and the team is still carefully planning a token launch event that truly benefits their community and likely includes a strong retention strategy. This process takes time; it's not just a perspire-to-aspire kinda thing. Especially since Telegram gaming is still in its early stages, despite the 'success' of Notcoin . Tapswap Notcoin The team doesn’t understand how Telegram games work. The team doesn’t understand how Telegram games work. The team doesn’t understand how Telegram games work. Currently, Telegram games earn revenue primarily through the traffic they generate, unlike Web2 or Web3 games which have multiple monetization avenues. For this project, being largely interested in making quick cash, I expect them to focus on driving traffic to their game and leverage monetized content platforms like YouTube, similar to how Hamster Kombat does it. But they weren't interested in going through this route. Wrong idea about marketing Wrong idea about marketing Wrong idea about marketing While discussing with the CEO, I found out he had a shabby idea about marketing which I've paraphrased to mean: “No other Telegram game is doing what we are doing so the project should be able to market itself. We should skip building a community because that takes time, rather we should simply get people to buy our tokens because we don't think the players we have can afford to buy tokens.” “ No other Telegram game is doing what we are doing so the project should be able to market itself. We should skip building a community because that takes time, rather we should simply get people to buy our tokens because we don't think the players we have can afford to buy tokens.” No other Telegram game is doing what we are doing so the project should be able to market itself. We should skip building a community because that takes time, rather we should simply get people to buy our tokens because we don't think the players we have can afford to buy tokens.” Obviously, the team has a clear vision of degens as their target audience and not necessarily onboarding the masses. While this is not a wrong ideal customer profile, there are slim chances of breaking through such a competitive market by merely just having a ‘great idea.’ In marketing, a smaller competitor can often outperform their rivals by having a stronger strategy. It's more about how you say it than what you're saying. how you say it what you're saying. They also expressed their desire to attract quick buyers who would stay long-term—a brazen irony! I did my best to make them understand the impossibility of this. Skipping community building and expecting to have loyal supporters for your project is pure fiction—a mere daydream. It's like shielding your plants from sunlight and rain, yet still expecting them to thrive and remain lush and green. Skipping community building and expecting to have loyal supporters for your project is pure fiction—a mere daydream. It's like shielding your plants from sunlight and rain, yet still expecting them to thrive and remain lush and green. Telegram gaming is still in its early phase, despite the number of games already available. You have the opportunity to stand out by breaking the jinx—being transparent with your approach and quickly pivoting when necessary for the benefit of your community members. Send an email to Web3.talez@gmail.com to get started . Telegram gaming is still in its early phase, despite the number of games already available. You have the opportunity to stand out by breaking the jinx—being transparent with your approach and quickly pivoting when necessary for the benefit of your community members. Send an email to Web3.talez@gmail.com to get started Web3.talez@gmail.com Web3.talez@gmail.com

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