How DTube Could Use Voting Bots to Refocus Emphasis on Views and Scale Creator Monetization

First off, let me say that the revenue model of Steem-based platforms is incredibly refreshing, and is several steps in the right direction. The idea of value being distributed by people consuming the content directly is both enlightening and obvious, and having technology like the Blockchain to facilitate that will be a groundbreaking advancement for how creators and viewers will interact with content in the future.

My background is in advertising. For the last 6 years, I’ve worked at big ad agencies in the US. And I have a passion for YouTube and the creators on that platform. But recently, as many of you are aware, the adpocalypse hit YouTube, mostly due to hit pieces from the Wall Street Journal scaring brands into pulling their money off YouTube. Obviously I have a perspective on the issue, but I’ll save that for a future video.

Suffice it to say that ad revenue has declined, videos are being demonetized, and basically YouTubers are up shit creek without a paddle. At the same time, Steemit and DTube is starting to gain traction because they offer a fundamentally different way of monetizing content, not related to ads or advertisers.

But to me, a relative newbie to the Steemit/DTube community, there’s one thing that worries me about the way the Rewards Pool is currently distributed. At this point, rewards are distributed based on Upvotes. But not all Upvotes are created equal. The value of your Upvote all depends on the amount of Steem Power (SP for short) that you hold. You can own your own SP, or people can delegate SP to you, but as long as it’s tied to your account somehow, it counts.

While there are certainly systems where this methodology makes sense, in particular Reddit-like communities where moderation and content curation are vital, you need those moderators to have greater power than the vast majority of individuals. Steemit and the current rewards pool was modeled after this.

But DTube, and user-created video platforms in general are a whole different beast. They aren’t based off topic oriented communities. Instead they revolve around channels (basically individuals). And while people can and do Upvote content, the most typical interaction is relatively passive, Views.

So Here’s My Concern: DTube is an Oligarchy.

Now, Oligarchies aren’t inherently bad. As I said before, for platforms like Steemit, it’s almost necessary to have people in positions of power to help steer communities and conversations.

But on DTube, emphasis is placed on the amount of money a post has earned, not on the number of qualified views that post has gotten. Now, that would be fine if value were distributed equally, but it’s not. Here’s a recent example from a video that https://steemit.com/@exyle made. (Please note that this is just an example, not a judgement. I really enjoy his videos, and think he does bring a lot of value to the community.)

https://busy.org/dtube/@exyle/okbv463s

As you can see his video has made $171.99. But if we look closer, let’s see how many views that is. On Steemit it currently lists the View Count at 450. Now this may not be totally accurate, but I imagine it’s close enough.

If this were on YouTube, his CPM (cost per 1,000) revenue would be over $350, and that’s in Steem and SBD, so multiply that by about 3. So let’s just round it out to about $1,000 CPM. That’s fucking awesome, and fucking insane.

See an average YouTuber gets about $5 CPM revenue at the moment. There are lots of reasons why this can go up or down, mostly related to which country the viewer is from. US viewers command higher ad rates, and thus pay more than say viewers from India.

On the surface, that sounds like the best pitch ever to potential YouTubers.

“You can get 200X CPMs on DTube!”

But wait a minute, how is he generating that amount of money off of so few viewers? Well let’s take a look at who is upvoting this post, and the value of those upvotes.

The biggest benefactor is DTube. Which is awesome. That’s basically like getting an Editor’s choice stamp. Then you have Exyle himself, and it goes on. Now I added up all the Upvotes worth at least $1 to see how those percentages break out, and that’s how I got to the statement that DTube is an Oligarchy.

91.33% of the value of this post ($157.09) came from only 16 people. That’s either 6% of the total Upvotes, or 4% of the total Views depending on how you want to look at it. That unequal distribution of power is what defines an Oligarchy.

My problem with this system is that a small number of people, tastemakers if you will, can define the type of content that they find valuable. And that will, in turn, determine the type of content that people create for the platform. Which is a problem if you want to bring new people onto DTube. If a YouTuber wanted to bring his audience over, they would all have basically zero value to that YouTuber, since they don’t have any Steem Power. And even if the few tastemakers decided to rally around a new YouTuber, that’s ultimately not a sustainable model for long-term growth.

So How Do We Make DTube More Egalitarian?

Below is one suggestion, with an assumption that the system that’s currently in place doesn’t change (meaning value is still distributed by votes, and DTube is still using Steem/SBD and not an SMT).

What is more egalitarian than rewarding every video on the amount of people who actually watch their video? That’s right, we need to refocus on Views. Currently, DTube doesn’t display View counts, and I’m not sure if that data is even gathered at this point. But it should be. And it probably should be displayed alongside the video.

Once we have that data, the question is what to do with it. How can we reward views if the pool is still distributed by upvotes? The answer: Voting Bots!

For me personally, I’ve been very skeptical about voting bots, especially in the way they’ve been used today in many circumstances. Yes they can help minnows earn more, but the bot itself is not adding meaningful value back to the community. Since people don’t follow bots and their actions, a vote from a bot has no Earned value. You get what you pay for, and that’s it. It doesn't help with content discovery, and it doesn’t help new people build a sustainable following, it’s purely transactional. Moreover, it’s a transaction that the post creator pays for directly.

But in this example, I want to illustrate how a bot can actually generate value for a user based not on transactions, but on views.

Introducing the DTube View Bot!

This would be not one, but many bots who are programmed to Upvote content once they reach certain thresholds of views. (for the sake of argument, let’s assume we have safeguards in place to stop view spamming).

As you can see, if you get 1,000 Views, the bot will upvote you at a value of $1.00, which is roughly $3 USD. While that’s less than what YouTubers currently earn, remember that this is just part of that income. Everyone who watches the video will also be able to Upvote and add more value.

But what this does do is put a floor below the videos, anchoring their value to the number of views they have. And guess what, since each bot acts independently, those upvotes would be cumulative. Meaning you get $.10 at 100 Views PLUS $1.00 at 1,000.

But where do these View Bots get their SP? Well, since DTube collects Beneficiary rewards of 25% for each video they host, a portion of that could go towards these bots. In addition, each bot would earn its own rewards as curation rewards over time. And perhaps people would be willing to Delegate SP to these bots to passively earn rewards over time as well.

There are still lots of questions here, especially as the system scales, like voting power over time, and the number of bots needed relative to the number of videos that achieve each threshold. But this is just an early suggestion. And https://steemit.com/@heimindanger, or other DTube devs, if you are reading this and want to chat more, definitely hit me up. I’m not a developer, so I can’t help there, but I am very enthusiastic about DTube and happy to ideate further on this topic. In the end, I just want to help make this system more sustainable long term.

---

Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors

---