I’ve been thinking a lot recently about PeerTube, Loops, Bandwagon, and other platforms in the Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.
It‘s a two sided blade, but I get what you mean.
On one hand monetization is the thing that ruins platforms for me because it invites grifters and even decent people are becoming obsessed with numbers. Most people see content creation only as a career path and not something to do for fun anymore. I find that depressing at times.
On the other hand we currently live in a capitalist world and have to play by those rules to some extend. I learned most of the things I do for a living from Youtube because professionals do Blender tutorials as a side gig or even for a living. There probably wouldn‘t be nearly as much knowledge out there without this motivator. Or at least not in this form that is easy to understand for me. The official Blender documentation usually isn‘t the first place I‘m searching through when I have a problem.
So I see where you‘re coming from but it‘s a fine line between helpful and loathsome.
Keep it away is my strong advice. Having to deal with banks will mean having to deal with regulations. Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros. Having to deal with paywalls is a barrier to entry
The internet was a better place without money touching everything!
Artists need exposure before monetization imho, which currently fedi lacks severely. So discoverability is what I suggest as priority to work on.
That said, algorithm free is the draw of fedi as well and I personally don’t want my feed filled with excessive ad or self promo spam. Getting the right middle ground will be tricky.
Where do you think would be an affordable place to advertise the fediverse?
I think the fediverse should advertise it’s self in a simple slogan that can lead the normal user into a more in depth explanation of what, why and how. When I first discovered Lemmy, I didn’t know what the fediverse was, it felt really strange
If you allow artists to display their work in various communities along with the ability to post links in their profiles, but you restrict actual posts to disallow self-promotion, it’s the best of both worlds, IMO.
In other words, if you can’t include self-promotion in your community posts, but everyone knows you have the links in your profile, it attracts less grifters and keeps the feed clean, while allowing anyone interested to contact a poster directly or ask them promotional questions via DMs.
That said, hosting a full-fledged marketplace is not a good idea, IMO. There are laws and banks involved, which mean lawyers and taxes, and volunteer management does not work for that. There are already marketplaces that do that well, and allowing artists to post their own links of choice in their profiles will let them steer actual business to other platforms, while keeping the fediverse for display, review, share and critique. My opinion, anyway.
Maybe it’s just nostalgia but in my opinion, with youtube it went all to shit the moment the money started to be involved. Algorithm chasing, advertisement, reactive content, sponsors, quickly generated videos, … and all the other shit.
So if monetization, then let’s try to avoid same mistakes
Lemmy loves free labor and freedom washed exploitation. Not sure you’ll find a lot of support here.
People pay money to the ISP. Usually too much money. ISP should distribute monies to content providers and leave the users alone.
