Comment on The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
dbtng@eviltoast.org 1 day ago
Hey, um … I read your article. Or I tried to.
It lost me at the point where I need to give money to somebody else. So, basically right at the start.
To be more specific, your article starts of lamenting that its not convenient enough for me to give money to someone (“content creators”, a bullshit term if I’ve ever heard one) on these federated platforms. “this is a bit of a problem” There’s no examination of whether we should be doing this. Its taken as a given that monetization is a positive goal.
So … I really tried to get there and understand your point, but there’s this vast gulf between us.
Why would it be bad if nobody makes any money off the fediverse?
That sounds good to me.
What’s bullshit about content creators? I enjoy watching documentaries from The History Channel or The Learning Channel. If someone does a bunch of research and self-publishes a documentary, they’re somehow less valid?
The article isn’t about anybody “making money off the fediverse”. It’s about finding a way to make the fediverse viable, considering that everybody wants to use it, but nobody wants to donate.
Youtube was a lot more fun before it was flooded with professionals out to make a buck on advertising. This thing you seek … it is not good.
You’re referencing a time when the content was also completely useless, and ZERO production values were expected.
Times have changed, old man.
Not OP, but I’d work real fucking hard to give us something that can be a viable alternative to Youtube where a corporate monopoly doesn’t take 95% of the cash. It doesn’t even need to be federated, but we all see the shithole Odysee immediately became. We have a substantial number of people here with like interests and marginally like feelings on a lot of topics that would make great video content.
Peertube has been around for 7 years, and there isn’t enough content on it to occupy even a Linux nerd for more than 30 minutes a week. People are only making videos on YouTube because they can make some semblance of a living at it.
I think giving people who are willing to create videos some decent tools for monetization in open products would be a reasonably good idea. We have nothing there now; we don’t have anything to lose by it. It’s not like great content that doesn’t exist can be walled off to us.
This could be as easy as forking peertube and putting in patreon privitization links. Or it could be a federated version of KoFi that ties in.
Ok, I quibble with much of what you just wrote, but your first line contained a lucid point.
In essence, you propose that a federated monetization scheme would direct the bulk of the pie to the participants and not to the big corporate interests.
Now that’s a damned interesting thing to consider.
I think its obvious that it would/will go awry. Any time you get non-profits screwing around with money, somebody figures out how to steal it.
But if even a bit more went to the participants and paid for infrastructure, that would be a positive thing.
But again … non-profits and coops never handle money correctly. Watch this get all the way to the goalpost and then swoop, it all gets handled with GooglePay. Its doomed. DOOM.
I think its obvious that it would/will go awry.
I’m not even sure that is possible, but I’d like to see us try something.
Maybe the best place to start is by allowing a microtransaction service into the UI and let people add their own API keys to known players.
megrania@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I don’t agree, really … that’d limit the Fediverse to hobbyists.
It’s completely legitimate to look for income & exposure as a creator, whether you’re making music, visual art, or document your process making physical objects. Corporate platforms, as crappy as they might be, provide a path to that, and in many ways created viable path for creators to do what they like full-time. Not saying that it’s perfect or easy. But the Fediverse is currently no alternative at all …
Currently, restricting yourself to the Fediverse as an artist unfortunately means that you’re taking quite a hit in terms of exposure you can get. As long as that’s the case, and people even defend it, then we really can’t complain that the Fediverse isn’t attractive for a larger amount of people, and centralized platforms will always have the bigger draw.
I try to avoid corporate platforms as much as I can, but as a consumer I often feel starved of content. I haven’t found any interesting woodworking channels on PeerTube, or guitar repair channels, or whatever else I enjoy watching to wind down.
And as a creator, well … it’s not my source of income, but I sure would like it to be. And if I ever decide to make that step, I’m pretty sure that I’s have to make amends to my “no corporate platforms” approach. The Fediverse doesn’t feed you.
dbtng@eviltoast.org 22 hours ago
Ok. I can follow this line of reasoning.
If you want to avoid corporate platforms, fediverse doesn’t provide as viable an alternative as one might like.
This is clear, and makes sense. Thanks for the succinct explanation. At least I see some sense here now.
I’m not entirely sure that it matters.
Like, when was it decided that the ‘making money’ bit needed to be imported from YouTube?
megrania@discuss.tchncs.de 9 hours ago
I doesn’t “need” to be imported, the question is just, where do we see the future of federated (non-)platforms ? Do we want them to be “small and cozy” with a small and fairly narrow selection of content or do we want a non-corporate alternative that can compete in richness and variety of interesting content of all niches?
A lot of folks only seem to see the crappy part of youtube and other platforms, and don’t see the richness of content that exist. There’s still so much interesting stuff to be found. I don’t think there has ever been another archive of, say, documentation about arts, crafts, history, food, than YT, even it its current enshittified form. If that’s an ocean of content, the Fediverse isn’t even a major river (at least that’s my impression).
If you don’t mind that, great. But I do, I’d love a non-corporate version to exist that can compete in terms of richness of content.
And monetary incentive is part of the puzzle, as it incentivizes people to spend time on it, which in terms generates a bigger audience, which in turn has a higher potential to support a wider range of content niches. Plain and simple.