A New Way For DADA. Part II.
THE RISKS OF INTRODUCING MONETARY INCENTIVES ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
We live in a world where people create content and value for free on social media, and social media conglomerates profit from this content, while their users get no compensation whatsoever. We believe that it’s only fair to pay people for their contributions.
However, we have already established that social media is a distorted model. If likes are more valued than the quality of the content, it’s not surprising that people pester friends or strangers for likes. If your amount of followers makes you into an influencer, buying followers will turn you into an instant expert without having to prove any expertise. Being popular is not equivalent to being good or reputable.
What happens when we introduce a currency and a reward system in such an environment? We run the risk of rewarding mediocrity and validating the very dynamics that make social media so toxic. Quid pro quos — upvote me and I will upvote you — detract from interesting content. It all becomes a race for points. Platforms start resembling conventions of used car salesmen, which is ultimately harmful to the sustained engagement, growth and cohesiveness of the community.
[caption id=”attachment_3413" align=”aligncenter” width=”630"]
Visual Conversation by Gil Sansón, Betunski, and Otro Captore.[/caption]
HOW TO INTRODUCE MONETARY INCENTIVES ON DADA
DADA is a creative playground where expression, imagination, and dialogue are more valued than technical skill. People don’t come to promote their own work but connect and create art with others in a community that is supportive and encouraging. Our users claim this has a magical effect: it delights them, improves their drawing skills, they meet new friends, they want to come back, be surprised by the responses, and participate in creating beauty with others. So how can we introduce transactions without altering the delightful experience and the cohesiveness of the community?
We strongly believe that our users’ motivation to contribute to DADA shouldn’t shift to commercializing their work. Instead, making money should be an experience as delightful and magical as everything else on DADA.
We have always envisioned DADA as a place where people are remunerated behind the scenes by the value they create. By speaking to each other through drawings they create value, and we, as a platform, can take care of the sales and distribution of their content without them having to do anything at all.
In this sense, we don’t want our users to think about a drawing as a commodity: “if I make X number of drawings, I’ll make X amount of money”. We want them to keep doing what they are already doing, freely, for fun, for love, and then be surprised by “a check on the mail”.
To achieve this, we think that transactions and the act of creation should not be directly connected. Rather, all the transaction information should be displayed after the fact, with the full transparency allowed by smart contracts.
CREATING AN ECONOMY
DADA’s mission has always been to help artists achieve economic independence. We have never intended to make money off artists: we don’t offer a subscription model, a $0.99 mobile app, a freemium model where artists pay for extra features, and we don’t sell our users’ data and attention to advertisers.
Our business model needs to be one in which our artists make money as well.
DADA is a collection of original collaborative art. We have a substantial repository of digital art, with thousands of high-quality drawings, both individual and collaborative. DADA is also an incubator of ideas and a talent database. All of which has great value.
For an inherently collaborative community like DADA, a decentralized peer to peer marketplace where creators and consumers alike are incentivized to add value to the community makes sense.
The art created on DADA will be available for purchase as individual drawings or visual conversations, perhaps even as customized collections by consumers. If we offer the right incentives for buyers and consumers of digital art we can build a self-sustaining ecosystem.
[caption id=”attachment_3414" align=”aligncenter” width=”630"]
Visual conversation by Cromomaniaco and Beatriz Ramos[/caption]
THE DADA TOKEN
DADA is introducing an open source cryptographic token, named dada, which is envisioned as a general purpose token. dada token will be the unit of account for all economic transactions within the DADA Ecosystem and will be implemented on the public Ethereum blockchain as an ERC20 token.3
DADA has two unique properties as a social media platform:
1- All content created on DADA is made directly on the platform; no art is ever uploaded.
2- All content is collaborative. Every drawing can be continued and replied to by someone in the community.
Since content on DADA is unique and inherently collaborative, the DADA token could represent the entire collection of the art created on DADA:
VALUE
The DADA collection of digital art will grow over time as artists continue to create and more artists join the community.
Limited availability of certain artworks will encourage demand and higher prices.
The value of the collection will increase as demand increases for the individual drawings, as well for completing collections or visual conversations.
The dada token will capture value from the top performance artworks, thus benefiting the entire community.
[caption id=”attachment_3415" align=”aligncenter” width=”630"]
Visual conversation by Beatriz Ramos and Jonathan D-Arte[/caption]
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Artists retain the intellectual property of their own individual drawings.
DADA retains the intellectual property of all visual conversations or series of drawings. dada Token represents a percentage of the intellectual property of all the art created on DADA.
Ways to earn dada token
Content creators can earn tokens by drawing, inviting friends, sharing, commenting, selling art, tagging their drawings, testing, curating.
Developers: Design, coding, launching apps.
Ways to spend dada token
Buying art, buying merchandise, buying creative tools such as Wacom tablets and iPad Pro and Pencil, crowdsourcing art, funding art projects, funding events.
Content creators
Artists will earn dada tokens for every new drawing they make on DADA. Number of tokens per drawing are allocated according to a gamified system.
Curators
DADA is a self-curated community. Curators play an important role in maintaining the quality of the content, diversity of styles and discovering talent. Curators earn dada tokens for their contribution. Curators are selected based on their contribution to the community, their skill level and their criteria.
Collectors
Each digital artwork created on DADA will have a certificate of authenticity and a permanent record of ownership. Users will be able to buy dada token to collect limited editions of digital drawings that can be traded and sold, and can appreciate over time.
Clients
Clients will be able to buy dada tokens to crowdsource content directly from the community. They will get a range of interpretations from a variety of artists and every artist who participates will get a percentage of the fee.
Consumers
Users will be able to buy T-shirts, mugs, prints and other merchandising based on DADA drawings with their dada tokens.
Live Streaming Consumers
Users can pay artists a small amount of dada token to watch them create their drawings in real time.
