How does DAP fit into the sea change taking place across journalism?

An introduction to Decentralized Autonomous Press

DAP is a protocol that aims to fix the problems with the press. Its built on Ethereum and live on a test network.

There is a memorable scene in Mel Gibson’s most recent movie Dragged Across Concrete where his Chief Lieutenant suspends him not because of his heavy handed actions per se but because the cop was videod by a civilian and this content was published by the media.

He explains,

Being branded a racist in today’s public forum is like being accused of communism in the 50s. Whether its a possibly offensive remark made in a private phone call or the indelicate treatment of a minority who sells drugs to children the entertainment industry — formerly known as the “News” — aids villains.

Vince Vauhn his beat partner responds,

There is certainly nothing hypocritical about the media handling every perceived intollerance with complete and utter intollerance.

You can’t help but view the scene as a Gibson retort to his handling by media in the past over “racist rants” but its the observation that news is now entertainment that sticks. Its so true.

You only have to follow Amanda Knox’s diatribe for a day to witness the extent to which this has become true. Her contention is that her whole public life was stolen by the media for entertainment purposes and to fuel their profits after she was imprisoned for murder in Italy. She stands as one of the most interesting case studies on this problem as well as one of its most vocal combatants.

As for Trump and his assault on “Fake News”; thats a rabit hole too deep to go into here!

This Elon Musk tweet speaks for itself and basically this is what DAP is.

Evolution

The inevitable push back to this fluff producing, eyeball iritating trend is underpinned by public hunger for better. Several business models of note have emerged.

Medium

Driven by its billionaire founder its journey has forayed into advertising revenue only to settle on a subscription model enabled, it seems, because it reached a critical mass of nearly 100 million unique readers per month. It currently employes around 35 “curators” to approve stories and label them according to category so that the Medium algorithms can push interesting content appropriately. Those who use Medium will know that it is getting better and better at doing so.

This team of curators reviews thousands of articles each day. But only those designated as paid viewing by their authors are curated (you need to join the Partner Program to get paid as a writer).

How does DAP differ?

DAP alerts readers via a telegram channel and twitter account when a new article is published for a given DAP publication. This is a different means to notification than most next generation news producers use, which is usually email. But it could be more aligned with technology’s direction of travel.

If you will soon be able to micropay with Libra on Facebook channels and TON on Telegram then links to DAP open articles could accept a micropayment to a smart contract prior to sending the user to the content.

One of the core functions of Medium’s curators is to assign articles to Medium’s topics so that the content can be relevantly pushed to readers. DAP leans on a more traditional view of content where readers trust publishers or specific writers and follow their content. As such DAP curators check for editorial standards and users support specific DAP publications.

Where Medium helps DAP in terms of validation is in the curation function. It has demonstrated that a group of curators (who have a range of specialities) can effectively handle curation of thousands of articles daily. If there were 350 decentralized curators rather than 35 Medium staff would you feel more or less comfortable as a publisher? That is one of the big questions for decentralization not just DAP.

Every article submitted would be curated by DAP’s curators thus no hurdle is created by “introducing” a special programme. This is more similar to Steemit which, whilst being an undisputed pioneer, ultimately has no real meaning to curation (as explained by Slava Balasanov of Relevant) and thus failed in its bid to become a decentralized platform that effectively rewards its content producers.

Independent publications as exemplified by The Information

The Information is a notable Silicon Valley online news company which the great and the good seem to have rallied behind. For the purpose of this article I use it interchangeably for any and all independent news or content producers. It also runs its own incubator about which it created its own documentary series. This series offers a fantastic fly on the wall perspective about the challenges talented journalists face going it alone.

Most of its alumni implement their own website, blog or newsletter and try to find ways to monetise their content by getting loyal followers to pay to consume.

How does DAP differ?

Whereas DAP is a direct competitor of Medium by virtue of the fact it is an alternative platform (albeit running on decentralized rails), it is potentially a solution The Information type producers could leverage. Of course, so is Medium!

The key difference between the Medium option and the DAP option is that a centralised organisation is not controlling the money; a smart contract is. That smart contract can’t arbitrarily ban you and ruin your business whereas Medium could.

The prevailing challenge described by producers enrolled in The Information’s incubator is developing a sustainable revenue stream. Essentially, a revenue model is not native to the technologies they are using whereas money in the form of crypto is native to DAP.

If we stick with the revenue example described above and think more Telegram than Facebook (Telegram’s new blockchain supports solidity with which DAP is constructed) how could we solve these creators problem without giving up control to yet another tech giant?

The micro payments paid when links to new articles are clicked pay straight to that DAP publication’s smart contract and are autonomously distributed to its writers. Appropriate ad revenue e.g. sponsorships could also be paid straight into the contract via AdEx or a similar new breed of onchain advertising platforms. Standard subcriptions could also be implemented on a DAP’s open site.

Doesn’t there seem to be an almost insurmountable chasm between getting free content and paying via subscription or some sort of pay wall? Perhaps the normalization of pay walls will migrate buyers into paying in due course. But the sheer variety of quality material available surely means that only writers with the most loyal and devoted followers will attract their financial dedication too. Pay walls and subscriptions just don’t feel like the winning solution.

Curation and decentralization

You can imagine standing in the shoes of Medium’s CEO and wondering: How much revenue is coming in from $5 per month subscriptions? How much do we pay out to publications? What is the minimum number of curators we need?

Curation in Medium, like content monitoring on Facebook, is the new factory floor seeking workers whose role in life is to keep the owners and shareholders in as much profit as possible while themselves making just enough to survive.

The Information is different. It hires talented writers and with its subsriptions hopes to pay them. It has one owner who, I guess, wonders on a daily basis: Can or should I hire another writer?

Interestingly, the lines are getting blurred where Medium Publications recruit writers and pay them from the proceeds of their Medium revenue.

DAP’s curation market is about de-abstracting (if you like) the editorial decision making function. Academically, this role could be attributed enormous “value” within the Media but it is never a separate business to the main company so it cannot be apportioned its own slot on the value chain.

Until now.

The technology that underpins DAP essentially creates a new economy for decision-making.

DAP articles pass through three stages:

1. Curation

Live: https://curate.dap.media

Curators decide if an article is worth the money its creator seeks and if it passes DAP’s curation guidelines. Curators do not need to be “our” employees because they generate reputation based on their actions and consequently receive rewards autonomously and paid in ETH. They must stake DAP’s ERC20 tokens to be able to curate so they also have skin in the game. These will probably be bonding curve issued. DAP’s curation market is a sybil resistant reputation protocol.

If a quorum of curators uptick an article it is pushed to voting. Otherwise it is not. Article submitters pay a small fee which is used as curator rewards thus preventing the majority of spam.

2. Voting

Live: https://vote.dap.media

DAP promotes the opportunity for readers to view articles first on web 3. On computers this is via Chrome or Firefox with MetaMask installed. On mobile it is via a mobile ethereum browser app such as Coinbase Wallet, Cypher, Trust Wallet or, the sector’s newest and most anticipated player, MetaMask itself. You cannot view the material if you are not using web 3.

Followers of the DAP (publication) are alerted via Telegram and Twitter when a new article passes curation. It will remain on DAP Reader for 24 hours before being made open on DAP’s home page. Web 3 is not required on DAP’s home page where open articles are published.

The votes of Readers on vote.dap.media “worth it”, “not worth it” are able to counter the results of curation because essentially they are from a different constituency. The Curation Market team calls this “bi-constituency curation” and DAP’s smart contracts evaluate reputation based on the sequence of results from curation through to voting.

For example, if enough curators who are bad actors were to uptick a weak clickbate advertorial such that it activates and is pushed to voting, that community of loyal readers of the publication will counter this decision with “not worth it” votes. The smart contracts operate in such a way that this suppresses the reputation of the offending curators limiting their actions and making sure their rewards are denuded.

3. Open

Live: https://dap.media and if you want to take a look under the hood https://pilot.dap.media

After 24 hours on DAP Reader for voting the article is pushed to the DAP home page where anyone can read it.

In contrast to Medium and The Information, DAP does not have a manager or owner wondering how many curators or writers to engage. The platform is in itself a market that creates an equilibrium between them and readers.

Conclusion

DAP is positioned to leverage the direction that technology is taking us and simultaneously solve the problems with the press. In doing so it thinks beyond advertising and subscription revenue. To that extent, it reinvents the industry, which is exciting.

But with respect to conventional revenue streams, which are still valid to the point that they are abused through unfettered rent-seeking or eyeball-mining for advertising profits, there are alternative business models that DAP must now choose:

1. It could plan to create one paywall for all open content and autonomously distribute the proceeds to journalists. Dap.media would become the home of all DAP publications. As such it would face off against Medium as a kind of decentralized, autonomous competitor.
2. It could give each DAP publication the autonomy to generate revenue however it prefers from their own “open” website and their corresponding fork of the underlying smart contract customized to their requirements.
3. A third option is interesting. Independent DAP publications could start life on the dap.media main site, but because each has its own smart contract they could later spin off and become separate. This is something Medium cannot accommodate and does not allow but, due to the decentralized nature of DAP, could be possible.

The strategic question that really floats to the surface from this analysis is “Has Medium found the subscriptions answer”? and, therefore, should DAP follow in step?

What do you think? Please use the comments below.