- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about PeerTube, Loops, Bandwagon, and other platforms in the Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.
You must log in or # to comment.
I have high hopes for GNU Taler in that regard, as it is in theory super easy to include in any website and makes tipping small sums very feasible.
But in reality it is bogged down by bureocractic hurdles on the banking side, and I am starting to lose a bit of hope due to perpetual delays even after some banks promised to support it as part of an EU grant via Nlnet.
Maybe this is a pipedream but I think mods should be paid for their labor.
Lemmy loves free labor and freedom washed exploitation. Not sure you’ll find a lot of support here.
If Fediverse software starts encouraging monetization, I don’t think the userbase will even maintain the current strength.
A free and direct tip system that doesn’t force you to use credit cards would be quite useful
Artists need exposure before monetization imho, which currently fedi lacks severely. So discoverability is what I suggest as priority to work on.
That said, algorithm free is the draw of fedi as well and I personally don’t want my feed filled with excessive ad or self promo spam. Getting the right middle ground will be tricky.
If you allow artists to display their work in various communities along with the ability to post links in their profiles, but you restrict actual posts to disallow self-promotion, it’s the best of both worlds, IMO.
In other words, if you can’t include self-promotion in your community posts, but everyone knows you have the links in your profile, it attracts less grifters and keeps the feed clean, while allowing anyone interested to contact a poster directly or ask them promotional questions via DMs.
That said, hosting a full-fledged marketplace is not a good idea, IMO. There are laws and banks involved, which mean lawyers and taxes, and volunteer management does not work for that. There are already marketplaces that do that well, and allowing artists to post their own links of choice in their profiles will let them steer actual business to other platforms, while keeping the fediverse for display, review, share and critique. My opinion, anyway.
Client side support for a tipping link (Koffee, Patreon, crypto wallet, whatever the user’s choice is) that is built in to the UI would go a long way.
It‘s a two sided blade, but I get what you mean.
On one hand monetization is the thing that ruins platforms for me because it invites grifters and even decent people are becoming obsessed with numbers. Most people see content creation only as a career path and not something to do for fun anymore. I find that depressing at times.
On the other hand we currently live in a capitalist world and have to play by those rules to some extend. I learned most of the things I do for a living from Youtube because professionals do Blender tutorials as a side gig or even for a living. There probably wouldn‘t be nearly as much knowledge out there without this motivator. Or at least not in this form that is easy to understand for me. The official Blender documentation usually isn‘t the first place I‘m searching through when I have a problem.
So I see where you‘re coming from but it‘s a fine line between helpful and loathsome.
super necessary if we expect anyone (outside of hobbyists) to even think of putting their content on the fediverse first or at the same time as other platforms
Part of the headache here is that this situation inherently props up a few monopolistic platforms, rather than allowing people to use whatever payment system is available in their own countries. Some of this can be worked around using cryptocurrencies – famously, the Mitra project leverages Monero for this very purpose, although I’m told it now can accept other forms of payment as well.
Hell yeah, I didn’t know about Mitra. It sounds like it’s a Patreon esque kind of deal with what the payments part is for.
Keep it away is my strong advice. Having to deal with banks will mean having to deal with regulations. Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros. Having to deal with paywalls is a barrier to entry
The internet was a better place without money touching everything!
I don’t have strong feelings either way, but money does touch everything, overtly or not, when it comes to civilisation. Time spent volunteering on Fediverse projects is effectively money spent (at least to some degree), and instances cost time & fees to maintain.
But I guess to argue against myself-- you have to think that without some kind of ongoing responsible oversight, then the worst aspects of capitalism might predictably find a way to screw it all up if left to its own devices. Then again, maybe the scale involved makes that less likely. *shrug*
Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros
The internet was also a better place when people using it were more open minded
Open minded to being scammed? No thanks.
Patreon kinda fits that, but I’m not sure about their open-sourceness
Maybe it’s just nostalgia but in my opinion, with youtube it went all to shit the moment the money started to be involved. Algorithm chasing, advertisement, reactive content, sponsors, quickly generated videos, … and all the other shit.
So if monetization, then let’s try to avoid same mistakes
One seemingly enormous difference is that YT is a for-profit platform owned by a huge business (Google), not a decentralised network run by many small volunteers. FWIW.
I’m not sure if this translates to the content creators. There’s many of them whom I really like to watch who do (or did) Youtube as a business model. Tom Scott being one example or Derek Muller (Veritasium). I’m subscribed to many more. Simplicissimus and their yet better second channel (in German). We wouldn’t have those without monetization. The platform of course went shit over time. Fortunately my Ad blocker still works and thanks to Sponsorblock my experience is fairly alright… But personally - I’m split on this question. We had quite the amount of entertainment before monetization but I think a large amount of quality content also arrived after that, and because of it. Those people would be working some office job today if it wasn’t to Youtube. And I (and the world) would miss out… On the other hand we got MrBeast, a lot of fake cooking videos…
I don’t think it was money that changed youtube, i think it was the algo, it now promotes viral content that for some reason has a persons face in the thumbnail with an exaggerated face :O
Yeah, the YouTube algorithm itself is a huge problem. I think about the fact that there are entire slop studios out there trying to ride algorithm trends, churning out crap to push onto YouTube Kids so that they’ll do numbers and make a lot of money from it.
Like, I have nothing against the concept of a recommendation algorithm itself, but the relationship I just described is nightmare fuel.
After seeing your post on akkoma, I think I understand your point even better.
I want to support artists and would definitely buy music on fedi. I would rather just watch hobbyist make videos for peertube and especially for loops. But if it means that it would help the platform stay afloat I am way more open to the idea of monetization beyond just donations.
