Growing better business models for the web

Announcing Grant for the Web — a $100M fund to boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in web monetization

The Loup team is super excited to finally announce what we’ve been working on for the past few months: Grant for the Web.

We’re passionate about this work because, as entrepreneurs, creatives, and storytellers ourselves, we understand how broken the current system is. Grant for the Web opens up exciting possibilities for creators and publishers to get paid for their work without relying on creepy advertising and annoying paywalls — not to mention the flagrant abuse of personal data that is endemic on today’s web. As fans of culture, we’re excited to be able to support our favorite creators simply, without managing accounts on a whole bunch of different proprietary platforms.

Loup is designing and managing this new grant program and network. We’re delighted to collaborate with Mozilla, Creative Commons, and Coil on this journey, along with a fantastic group of advisors from the global open web community.

Decentralization of the web — creating viable alternatives to the big platforms that currently dominate our online lives — is increasingly urgent. Through this grant program we hope to nurture an ecosystem of people who feel the same. Grant for the Web will kick start a new network of content creators, fans and supporters, and open source custodians who care deeply about a web that puts users in control. It will help smaller players — writers, publishers, musicians, indie game developers — compete with the big companies and platforms who currently hold all the power and dictate how content can be shared.

Over the next few months we’ll be heads down, designing a program that is accessible, inclusive, global, and infused with values around privacy and user control. Watch for an open call for proposals in early 2020. We are preparing ourselves to be blown away by the network’s passion and creativity.

We already need your help, ideas, and energy. We’ve set up an email list, where you can sign up to receive updates about Grant for the Web, and a forum where we can begin collaborating and sharing examples of content creators already experimenting with web monetization. Help us celebrate the launch: visit grantfortheweb.org and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

We are also excited to bring this work to Mozfest 2019 — hope to see you there!

Onward!