Can STEEM fill the content monetization gap?
Current content monetization models leave strange chokepoints in value flow. For example, there is the "$4 Tim Ferriss Effect": I've gotten a ton of value from Tim Ferriss over the past 10 years, but he's only gotten $4 from me.
This makes the building up and releasing of guilt an important skill for content creators.
You have to build up guilt, so that when you ask for money, your audience members will pay it to you. When you ask, you better ask for enough. Because as soon as they pay the money, the guilt disappears.
This shapes what kind of media is economically viable. You have to either be very specific, and sell an online course ("here's my online course about how to make online courses"), or, if you dare to go abstract – be it through fiction, comedy, or philosophy – you better sell a shitload of books.
Here's how I currently see monetization models, and the types of media that are economically viable in each of them.
- Advertising requires a lot of volume. Slightly less the more niche your media.
- Books can command a higher price if they are specific. If they are abstract, you need more and more volume. In any case, you need quite a bit of volume for them to be economically viable.
- Online courses can command a higher price, and can thus be viable at a smaller volume. But, they have to be specific.
- Donations require a lot of volume. If you can make a living off of donations, chances are you can make plenty of money through other means.
Notice that in today's monetization landscape, there's not much room for abstract content that is low-volume. Certainly we have more diverse ideas available in the Internet age than in the TV age, but still, fringe, abstract, and niche interests are harder to make economically viable than they could be.
Cryptocurrency-backed media, such as STEEM, can reduce the friction, and thus the chokepoints of value flow, potentially freeing up space for more diverse ideas.
What do you think?
Quality post.
I think there will be a future with a complicated network of value tokens that get exchanged at many points in the content delivery process. There needs to be a layer for incentivized storage (i.e. video) - witnesses are not going to be optimizing for the petabytes.
There will be a layer like steem or LBRY to deal some content payments. I think this will be really deeply intertwined with a BAT (basic attention token) type model.
I do not think steem is the only part of the pie.
Thanks for telling me about LBRY – I'm checking it out right now! Any impressions you have so far?
Ehh. They have a nice idea, will be interesting to see if it stands the test of time. Things are going to move fast. Something like LBRY will certainly exist in the future - not sure if it will be that project in particular. There needs to be a perfect storm.
I am not an investor of LBRY.
I see no errors in this logic. Not only does Steemit reduce friction in "today's monetization landscape" as you put it, but it's almost a necessity for tomorrow's monetization landscape.
Automation will put immense stress on the job market. Humans may be forced to resort to pure content creation and entertainment of other humans as a means to survive. With unbiased, decentralized and fully automated platforms like Steemit, it may turn out alright.
All I know is the future is scary.
It could be that conversations and thinking might become viable means of getting value for value. It's not so scary – it sounds to me more like another move up Maslow's hierarchy.
Interesting theory!