Open source revenue model for artist community platform idea. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by Mangoholic@lemmy.ml to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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I had this idea for an open source app like Spotify or YouTube, where everyone can join and add content to it. Consumers pay either by donation, subscription or ads to keep the server and development running (non profit) and increase the content creator pool of money.

Every click or view gives the artist a % of that money pool. But they get alot more when they still have little amounts of views and more if they are loyal to the platform. The more they get, they ll reach a point where they have enough money to support themselves by making music or videos.

After this point you get more or less exponatially less money per view, but in return they fund all the other starting artists with their success, while still having a solid but slower growing income source. Making monetary success a more community driven goal.

Just an idea any critique/addition is appreciated.

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[-] copygirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There used to be this service called Flattr, and it's still around, but I'm honestly not sure how it works anymore. The way it used to work is you set a monthly amount you're willing to contribute, you get to specify which projects to support, either one time, or recurring, and then your contribution is split up between the projects you chose to support.

I don't know if this is an ideal system, because some creators might end up staying unsupported even though people are using their creations, others end up reminding their audience constantly to use the service and support them, so they end up with more than a similar creator not reminding their audience.

In the end, I think the best thing for all creators would would be universal basic income. Everyone is taken care of such they can survive and pay for necessities, and then they can just create stuff for others to enjoy, for free. (Oh, the humanity!) No trying to convince people to share part of their hard-earned money just for basic survival.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 year ago

It's not like others have not already though about this, but there are a lot of legal and organizational problems with pooling and passing through money like this, and once you reach a certain scale all sorts of anti-money laundry regulation become an issue as well.

[-] gon@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Well, that's all great. But the big problem with these kinds of platforms is always that hosting all this data (especially videos) is extremely expensive. It's not necessarily impossible that donations+ads+subs can cover all the infrastructure costs, but generally there's a need for some sort of big capital backing. Open Source is not something that gets that sort of private investment.

But hey maybe. I'd absolutely love that.

The model is pretty successful anyway, some people here have mentioned Pixiv and Nebula.

[-] arghya_333@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I believe Pixiv is exactly what you describe for artists, but not open source.

[-] Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

thx I ll check it out.

[-] birdcat@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I think https://nebula.tv/ does that? Good idea and should be done more. But from my perspective as a user it just feels like bad and limited YouTube app without sponsorblock.

[-] Lily33@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Not open source.
Can't customise my feed in any way. It's full of creators I don't like who post a lot of videos.

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

It's rudimentary, but the "library" tab is akin to the "subscriptions" tab on YouTube. That's how I tailor my experience.

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

The creators I watch on Nebula remove their sponsor segments for the videos they release on the platform.

[-] birdcat@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Doesn't happen in my experience, and even if, sponsorblock can also skip the 'pls subscribe' and other annoying parts.

Best scenario would be to implement it into newpipe, which should be possible somehow. But not if nebula chooses to stick to it's own app, which I find very bad overall.

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I agree the nebula app is pretty terrible. I'm willing to accept a bit more jank if it means it helps creators. Thankfully, they allow you to get an RSS uri for their podcasts, which includes the actual audio. It would be dope if you could do the same with their videos, but right now they just have feeds that link back to watching on their app or website.

[-] Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

In what ways would it be limited to youtube other than monetary gain.

[-] birdcat@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Sorry I don't understand the question.

I just meant that there is this site nebula, which I believe does what you described for videos.

Then I described my experience as a subscriber of nebula.

[-] Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Oh okay, well it can always improve right.

[-] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

That was kinda the original idea behind micro transactions (minus the gradual decline, if anything that's the other way around). And it just never worked I guess.