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Is there an industry term for users who are responsible for contributing valuable content in exchange for nothing that could be legally classified as actual com
by xenihn 5y ago
Is there an industry term for users who are responsible for contributing valuable content in exchange for nothing that could be legally classified as actual compensation? Or for a business whose revenue and valuation depends on said type of user?
Something Awful is the first example of such a business that comes to mind, and Reddit is the biggest modern-day equivalent. Give your moderators power (however feeble that power may be), and give your users some sort of recognition (shoutouts, internet points, etc), and they'll produce and curate valuable, eye-drawing content for you for free.
- ALittleLight 5y agoBasically all of social media is like this. You provide content to Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, whatever because you want people to see it. There is an edge case where you make money by getting famous, but usually people are just doing it for attention, same way they are for anything else. Why do people write answers on StackOverflow, Quora, whatever? They want people to read their answers and think they're smart.
- dv_dt 5y agoI wonder if there is a curated collection of stats somewhere on the lifecycle numbers on social media ventures?
- iechoz6H 5y agoAdmittedly this is one explanation, another could be that people simple like helping others.
- Mezzie 5y agoSome people like the puzzle/challenge aspect as well. Plus somebody asking something you know the answer to reinforces that your decision to retain that information has value. I'm a librarian. We answer a lot of questions.
- prashantsengar 5y agoAnd sometimes you don't know the answer to the question before you start writing, but in the process you learn something new.
- Mezzie 5y agoAnswering questions I don't know is the BEST.
- redis_mlc 5y ago[dead]
- fault1 5y agoIn some sense, the people doing "unpaid work" can be seen as trying to improve their own brand, name, or following. Very few of these influencers are able to monetize directly through this type of work though, unless it's through some sort of medium that does revenue sharing, like Youtube.
- tomnipotent 5y agoThis would explain why most Quora answers start off like self-promotional puff pieces you'd find on LinkedIn, about how the answer you're about to read changed someones life.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoyea Web 2.0
- pmyteh 5y agoIt's sometimes described as 'digital sharecropping'[0]. Depending on your reason for participating you may get some economic benefit (perhaps as share or exposure for your business) while the platform both takes the bulk of any profits and completely controls the relationship. Or you may get nothing, of course, other than some magic Internet points and a faintly tarnished sense of fun. [0]: https://www.roughtype.com/?p=634 https://www.roughtype.com/?p=634
- heresie-dabord 5y ago> the platform both takes the bulk of any profits and completely controls the relationship [...] you may get nothing, of course, other than some magic Internet points and a faintly tarnished sense of fun The magic points are a kind of worthless scrip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
- 0des 5y agoSaint Peter don't you call me cuz I can't gooooo I owe my code to Stack Overflooooow
- jsemrau 5y agoInteresting find. It's really amazing how much has changed since then.
- bcrosby95 5y agoProdigy and CompuServe both had forums - back when I was in elementary school (early 90s/late 80s) I used to read and post to the comic book forums all the time. Both services easily predate Something Awful.
- pimlottc 5y agoI believe the insider jargon is “dumb fucks”.
- bongoman37 5y agoI don't understand why this is downvoted.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago“crowdserfing”
- CRConrad 5y ago> Is there an industry term for users who are responsible for contributing valuable content in exchange for nothing that could be legally classified as actual compensation? There are actually two industry terms for that. The outward-facing (marketing) term: "User". The industry-internal term: "Product (for sale)".