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Here's the approach I've been working on: -Pay $~4/mo -Every upvote you give during that month (not just views, since I think views encourage clickbait) gives
by jjcm 9y ago
Here's the approach I've been working on:
-Pay $~4/mo
-Every upvote you give during that month (not just views, since I think views encourage clickbait) gives an equal slice of that $4 pie.
-At the end of the month, a flat $1 goes to pay for server costs, then the rest is distributed evenly between every upvote.
You can see a mini-demo here: http://syd.jjcm.org/soci/ http://syd.jjcm.org/soci/
The nice part of it is it ranks by quality while distributing payments. Since payouts happen at the end of the month, it gives a buffer zone to "unvote" something should it turn out to be fake/stolen/etc. The $1/mo for server costs should be more than enough per user to keep things running smoothly without the need for ads/selling user data. I'm working on it solo right now, if anyone is interested in helping out I'd be more than happy to share the project. Or if you're just inspired by it, go ahead and copy it. I think it's a solid model and is worth pursuing, though I'd also appreciate criticism on it.
- pavlov 9y agoThat's basically what Medium is doing now, right? They offer $5/month subscriptions, and the money from subscribers is distributed among those writers who published members-only content based on the amount of "claps" (likes) each subscriber gave.
- magic_beans 9y agoI'm surprised people pay for Medium. The quality of their brand seems to me a little diluted by the many half-baked, amateur articles published through their platform. It's basically thought catalog. Though I do of course enjoy the articles from reputable sources.
- jjcm 9y agoSimilar yea, though Medium is strictly blog posts. I feel like with the issues youtube is having with advertisers right now and things like imgur trying to monetize image hosting there needs to be a content platform that supports all media types.
- IanCal 9y agoCan you talk about how this compares to flattr?
- jjcm 9y agoI think the biggest thing is that flattr doesn't address the issues of ads intruding on privacy, nor does it guarantee that your user information isn't being sold as a way of monetization (since it's an add-on to an existing site rather than a content host itself). The one I'm trying to build does the hosting as well so we can guarantee that ads wont be present (at $1 per user per month, there shouldn't be a need for any additional revenue per user to stay running / make a small profit). The other thing though is flattr doesn't deal with content discovery very well. It doesn't rank content, it simply measures your own. Think of the one I'm working on as a reddit/hn except upvotes distribute a portion of your payment pool, that way we get a quality hierarchy in addition to distributing payments.
- arkades 9y agoIf things like Reddit are anything to go by, upvotes will quickly stop denoting quality and start denoting agreement with the perspective offered. In short, paying for an echo chamber.
- jjcm 9y agoPossibly, but I feel like at the very least if monetary value is attached to an upvote, then upvoting some meme will at least make you think, "Is this meme worth taking away money from the documentary I upvoted yesterday?" It may devolve into paying for an echo chamber, but I have faith that at least a larger number of people will reconsider their votes if they know that the votes give a share of their pool of contribution.