I'd like to hear what you all think about this. I've been thinking about ways to monetize media (https://medium.com/@johnbiggs/ill-pay-you-to-watch-videos-16...) because the old models aren't working. Mic is shutting down, Steemit is in a hole, and Civil isn't paying journalists. Clearly crypto is part of the answer but how? Anyway, I've created a service that pays you for watching videos. You can upload videos for a few fractions of a BTC and each viewer gets another smaller fraction. It's instant but it requires the viewer to keep facing the video. Lots of potential holes but it's something I wanted to try.
I'm sure someone is already developing it if it's a good idea, but it seems that instead of ad revenue, internet content could be paid for by cryptomining while consuming their content.
I'd like to throw in my pay-per-minute concept for video content. It's been tried before but I think it's the business model for media monetization that will win in the end. Basically a platform like Youtube could charge users a penny per minute and distribute to content creators after taking a platform percentage fee.
Starting something like this would have a huge chicken and egg problem though because no content creators would join a platform without a large existing user base. And I think Youtube and others would have trouble trying out a new business model because they might lose the confidence of their ad customers.
I think this is a good solution, but maybe not viable. Going past Crypto this could apply to so many issues needed to be reviewed on YouTube. But at that scale, the human cost is something YouTube refuses to pay.
I'll bite! Why does it have to be crypto currency? Why couldn't I load ten dollars credit into YouTube, in exchange for 1000 credits - one of which I'd use for every video I watch? Google has my card on file already, I'd trust them to deduct one credit per video properly.
I'm pretty sure some startups have already attempted a micropayment content gate. You pay them 5 bucks, they portion out the money to the content creators every month based on the articles you choose to read.
Other than an immediate payment (in the case where you're not running it yourself), why does it need cryptocurrency?
This really isn't a bad idea. Of course they'd have to have a wallet you deposit into, and disable ads completely for anyone using it for there to be buy-in, but I like the idea of paying the people I watch directly.
1c a minute seems like exactly what I'd be willing to pay, as well. Just for an example, a relatively small livestream I watched last week would have made $1200; there's no way they're making that much on ads. If that's the case, channels would market it as an upgrade too - "join our supporter's club, and get a badge".
I had an idea for a video streaming platform where people would add money to their account and be deducted a penny per minute and then publishers would get bulk payouts.
This solution is what the content creators want too: the problem is how to pay for it. Micropayments are the obvious choice, but they're currently impractical for a number of reasons (Bitcoin is promising but has yet to clear adoption hurdles necessary to hit the mainstream). I don't know that this will ever come to pass though. Micropayment tech is just too far off, and workable online distribution models are already in development.
Obviously, the cable/satellite/telco video companies of the world don't want to get disintermediated here; so most of them have been building IP video platforms for the last few years. It will still likely require a cable video subscription (though maybe with a slight discount as you won't need to rent a cable box.)
That's a good distillation of the issue. I have been noodling this idea for a good decade now as it's a huge problem to solve. Even micropayments are still payments that you have to decide to make. Really there should be a 'meter' on your media consumption and your $5/mo (or whatever) gets doled out to the creators of the content you consumed over that month. The problem is how do you equate a small single-authored article that takes me 5 minutes to read versus a 4K professionally-produced video that takes me 5 minutes to watch? Also, how do you handle the rise in fake content that will be even more incentivized to scream for eyeballs?
In the absence of an effective micropayment method, I could see this exchange of mining for content becoming main stream that replaces commercials. The cost to the viewer is ultimately a few cents of electricity, without the need for a bank account information, which the content producer indirectly turns into cash.
There are no micro payments out there that would support the site. You'd need to charge something like 0.0005 cents per view. No currency exchange supports something small. In reality, it would make people money. The consumer could limit their account to $20/m.
On the other hand, micropayment would freeze out poor people.
Companies like https://coil.com are solving this by giving you a single $5/month subscription and then streaming micropayments to the content creators as you consume their content. It builds on the WebMonitization standard https://webmonetization.org
Monetization of content is a business opportunity waiting to happen. Something like a network where you put, I dunno $10 per month and every article you read is charged for $0.10, as an example. Or unlimited during the month for $1
If news sites can allow us to Tweet or Fb an article it might be possible to 'coin' an article as well in a seamless manner
I agree, but I think most of us will always remain averse to subscription models. Especially now that everyone seems to be asking for them. While I MIGHT in the future consider paying for premium youtube, I certainly won't be doing it for the various newspapers, like the NYT, who paywall their articles after X reads. I'm just not interested in being tied down like that and incentivized to consume more of their content than I already do. It's a shame that the micro-payment systems that have been theorized about on here for the last decade still haven't come to fruition. I'd pay 5 cents to read an interesting article, or a couple cents to watch a video. Maybe a layer 2 protocol with no transaction fees sitting on top of a cryptocurrency can finally solve this before another decade goes by.
I think if we had a competitive, cheap and secure-enough micropayments system we could do away with advertisement-based monetization altogether. Creators could host their own videos, blogs, etc. on their own website and just charge a fraction of a cent per pageview or download.
They can use stuff like Patreon or STEEM/other tipping cryptocurrencies (that should be baked into the platform with an easy to click upvote button).
Before you laugh, I've seen people make $1,000 a day consistently like this. And this sort of community is still tiny (fewer than a million people). Can you imagine if 100 million or a billion people could upvote content like that?
I think something like STEEM is the future of content monetization.
Why not create a blockchain where ACTIONS online = PROFITS. The bigger actions would payout more, but coin is actually minted through online content creation, where you the creator of that content get compensated based on an algorithm.
Could even have that algorithm take in external things and re-calibrate the coins you were paid (i.e. give a bonus) for social media reach, or number of views...
E.g. : You post a video. -- You get 10 props. User B submits a comment. They have 500 comment karma so they get .01 props. User C submits a comment. They have 0 karma.. they don't get any props. User D has negative karma -- they actually have to pay props to comment till they're out of the hole.
Over a month you get 10k views, so the algorithm looks at all views across all videos for the month, and pays out a bonus where each view = 1 share out of the bonus pool of newly minted coins. Say there were 10 other users all w/ 10k and 100 props for grab you could basically give each 10 props as a bonus.
Obviously comments/etc isn't a huge time taking thing like creating a video, so video creator should get more.
I'm imagining something like Reddit + Steemit combined with some added rewards systems to keep users involved and providing QUALITY content, the karma system would be setup to basically try and ensure better quality.
We're excited to announce the launch of our new platform for monetizing online content. Our system allows users to easily create locked links that require payment in Bitcoin to unlock. This is a great way for content creators to earn revenue from their work and for users to access high-quality content.
Here's how it works:
- Create a locked link and set the price for unlocking the content in Bitcoin
- Share the locked link with your customer and receive direct payment when the content is unlocked
How does that work for a streaming service that charges a flat rate? Do you think public has an appetite for a pay per usage model/micro transaction model or would it drive users back to piracy? Micro transactions in online news media hasn’t managed to get any traction.
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