Would Optional Ads Solve Two Major Problems for Steem?
Hi Friends,
For those who missed @pennsif's community forum yesterday - I'd highly recommend checking out the replay if you have time. (more than 3 hours of time to be precise) For those of you who don't have time to do that - here's one of my biggest take aways from the conversation. It was an incredible conversation between a lot of top witnesses, community leaders, and dApp owners.
I know a lot of people are worried about the future of Steem - but honestly, seeing this group of people drop their egos and agendas and honestly come together to discuss the future of the platform gives me more hope than I can even say.
I listened at my desk at work - so I couldn't be the most active participant (and got pulled away by co-workers or my boss a few times) but I was able to listen in to most of it. Let me tell me you...I was taking some serious notes becuase the entire three hours was bursting with incredible conversation.
One of the things that struck me the most from this forum was something @fredrikaa (I'm pretty sure it was him) said about maybe having optional advertising. Basically - you could opt in or out to have adds on your content.
To me...This is brilliant on a few levels. Not only does it allow Steemit and all the other dApps/UI's to add another revenue source - but it incentives creators in a totally different way. Right now, one of the flaws (in my opinion) is that Steem values quantity over quality. As a video creator - I study a lot of top YouTuber's to see what the trends are in vlogging, their editing techniques and the general quality of their work. I've noticed that many of them only create content a few times a week instead of daily which is more the norm here on Steem.
Why?
Because they are incentivized to create content that is so awesome - it will get a ton of views. They are paid based on views - not on who decided to vote on their content. I think this does three things for creators.
- It gives added incentive to publish quality work that will attract more views/engagements into the future.
- It helps them to level out their income from content and not be based solely on how many votes they got.
- It incentives creators to share their work more frequently because they will get more ad revenue the higher the view count. This means more Steem based content out in the hands of the general public - which gives the blockchain a ton of extra exposure.
I go into more detail in this vlog (about 9 minutes long) for those who want to hear more of my thoughts on the subject. I would love to hear what you think in the comments below! Do you think optional ads is a good direction? I've heard a lot of people talking about placing adds on main pages such as trending - but I think giving the creators an option for placing ads on their own page could be an interesting idea to pursue.
Have an awesome night and I look forward to chatting with you all below!
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I see both sides of the coin here. One 1 side I like the idea of ads as a content creator and a way to have the dapps earn without delegation. On the other hand ADs could kill the user experience and I am not sure if "steemit/steem/DAPPS" is "cool" enough yet or viral enough to do ads (youtube didnt do ads for years until it was a beast and viral (aka the user experience was outstanding)). I don't know what the "solution is" to be honest, all I know is that yes its a bear market... we ride the storm out. Lets think a year or two from now where we honesty think the price of steem could be. If it were above $10 (which is think is reasonable with the development of SMTs, growth, no ads, more dapps ect) would we want ADs?
I think advertising is optional anyway with adblock, ublock extensions and the like. Advertising is a necessary and worthwhile evil. People get to earn an additional living on the website, advertisers get to sell products and the website maintains a staff to develop and push on into the future. I think if the only incentive to keep going on the website is if the price is high enough to pay people to maintain and keep the website online, then it has a chance of failing, as no one here can control the market. Steemit staff have mouths to fill and they have brains that have worked on a start up so deserve to be paid properly for their time or steemit will become like a farm team in baseball and never be able to keep good staff. Obviously people are motivated by creating a great website but if they can't live then they will have to move on from the job.
I really like the idea of optional Ads for Steemit too, so that the Bloggers can have another income source if they like it and of course it would be a big income source for Steemit Inc... If people don´t want to have Ads onm their blog and don´t want to see Ads on other blog, they could have the option to disable it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about this topic too @coruscate!
Question - wouldn't advertisers have already been using Steemit for free ads all along if they saw the value of reaching our demo (aside from some dapps and crypto coins like SmartCash)? It sounds like a a good influx of capital, but do we really have external companies willing to spend money to promote their goods and services to what's far from 1 million active users? We need to explore all ideas possible, and any income for Steemit, Inc. is necessary now, but I don't know what type of real pull Steemit will have to start generating such revenue, unless it's click-through affiliate links. I just don't see the volume in the near-term being substantial enough to help Steemit, Inc get out of their rut. Maybe I misunderstood the main idea.
Hey Matt! I think that's a fair point. It's one thing for us to say that we are open to having ads - it's another thing for other companies to view advertising on Steem dApps as worth their time and money.
I don't think we are necesarily going to have any massive corporation like Starbucks, Apple or Google knocking down our door - but I do think that we have a pretty valuable demographic here - people that are actually engaged and interested in crypto.
Aside from some crypto blogs, podcasts and Youtube channels - it's hard to find a bunch of us all in one room so to speak. I could see plenty of potentials here. Exchanges like bittrex and binance, Hardware wallet manufacturers like trezor, apparel companies that sell crypto shirts, maybe even other coins that want to get more exposure. Heck I could even see some steem based dApps choosing to pay for adds. Maybe Steem Monsters wants to get more exposure with the greater Steem community for example.
So yes, it's totally possible that no one will think we are worth advertising to - but I don't actually think it would be too hard.
You're right. The potential within our niche is solid in the short-term, I just hope it's enough to make a dent for the deficit Steemit, Inc. is in.
I'm not sure why, but I feel like Leonardo after your very wise words and thoughtful tone.
Thanks for the big upvote Lea!
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It would not hurt revenue needs to come in in order to cover the cost of business. I am sure many steemians would be happy to support but we are always left in the dark. The sad part of dpos POS works better
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I don't mind ads, but then I have an adblocker. How many people are tech savvy enough to be into crypto but not enough to have an adblocker?
But again, on principle I don't object to ads on the dapps. The only issue is that with advertising usually comes increasing amounts of censorship. Those attracted to the platform primarily to escape that may over time find they are right back in that system again, and once again persona non grata.
I think revenue from ads on the dapps is good, but not on steemit.com,
Dtube could really do with ads revenue for content creators and the Dtube team. The 7 days of earning from possible upvotes is a turn off to many that are used to the views model. As you said, with both in place , ( upvotes and ads revenue ) it would do the ecosystem a world of good , instant gratification and long term business model, Bette quality vids ! That is a solid idea I think. Thanks for keeping us informed💯
#S+C
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Let's not get started on the "I posted something in the middle of the night and it got buried because no one saw it." Because it has happened a lot to me. I do think an income for Steemit and for the creators besides upvotes would be a great incentive to keep the users engaged in posting quality content more frequently (even if it's just once or three times a week like you mentioned) I know a couple of users who've refrained/stopped posting because of the current prices and it's like wow, all of Steemit's problems are starting to float up now that there's not that many fish in the waters anymore.
I'll definitely check pennsifs' replay of the community forum. I think it's crucial for all of the core steemit users to listen and understand what the problems and solutions are.
Certainly good to take steemit towards comercialisation through Ads. A good way to earn some extra revenue and help steemit grow
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