20 True Fans Is All It Takes
The musicians' future is web3
Making money off streaming is easy if you’re Ed Sheeran. But as an independent artist, it’s hard. Really hard. You need roughly 1 million streams to make around $4000 in revenue. For any new artist, getting 1 million streams is incredibly difficult and the financial reward is slim. NFTs change this paradigm completely.
The artist struggle
Most independent artists lack two things, time and money. They need a job to support themselves while writing and they need time for their creative craft. This remains the case until they can generate 1 million consistent monthly streams (for a monthly income of $4000) on Spotify or equivalent platform, unless they’re “lucky” enough to pick up a record deal. And that’s assuming they don’t have any collaborators who are owed royalties. Holding down a job and creating music are both time-consuming. Between the cracks, artists need to build a brand, promote their work, and build an audience.
This is the path to becoming a full-time musician and it comes with no guarantees. Achieving more than a million monthly streams is effectively “star status” and yet the financial reward is minimal. Even for the artists that do achieve this, life isn’t smooth sailing from there. They will need to use the streaming revenue for their livelihood and to support their continued creative craft. Going on tour is financially out of the question without the backing of a label. This has a negative impact on their brand and fans of their work are left disappointed. This is the struggle of the independent artist. Or at least, it was.
Web3 has changed that.
Finding 20 fans is less hard
Thanks to NFTs and blockchain applications, the artist’s journey has changed forever. They now have the power to monetize their work by selling directly to their fanbase in the form of ownership rights and creative collector perks. And guess what? This is a whole lot easier than achieving 1 million monthly streams. Here’s why.
If an artist can accumulate just 20 true fans, they can sustain themselves as professional musicians. This is how it works out.
First up, according to Kevin Kelly, a “true fan” is defined as someone who will buy absolutely anything an artist puts out. For this example, we’re going to go with a more conservative definition.
Imagine that a true fan is willing to spend 0.1 ETH on the artist’s music NFTs. The price of ETH obviously fluctuates, but let’s settle on a reasonable assumption of $2000 per ETH. With just 20 fans buying their work for 0.1 ETH, the artist will make $4000 in revenue. This leaves them with the same financial results as hitting 1 million streams on Spotify. From just 20 people. Even if their fans don’t stick with them for longer than a month, finding 20 new people per month who are willing to support the artists' work pales in comparison to finding 1 million streams.
NFTs and blockchain are the artist’s saving grace.
The point isn’t that music NFTs will create a whole new wave of mega-rich superstar musicians. It’s far more exciting than that. The point is that a career as an independent artist has suddenly become a viable option for many more creatives.
And the crazy thing is, selling music and sharing in the rewards helps artists build dedicated communities. If their music is good, this will lead to an army of promoters that help them achieve 1 million streams quicker than through traditional promotion anyway. You could say that finding 20 true fans isn’t an alternative path to 1 million streams, it’s THE path to 1 million streams.
It’s still early
We’re still super early in the web3 music revolution and lots could change. But based on the landscape of decentralized creator technologies, I’d be willing to bet that things will only change for the better. New tools emerge every day and the OG tools are still working to find traction and market fit. The common denominator among all these tools is they exist to benefit the artist, not themselves.
Currently, artists still require some support to launch their NFT projects. Luckily, companies like AnotherBlock and Royal make it super simple for artists to get started. In the near future, the web3 user experience will become easy enough for anyone to launch their project and start building their career as a musician.
The Web3 Creative Suite
Web3 technologies allow artists to not only build a fanbase, but a community. A community that supports them on their journey and helps them promote their music. There are tons of new and exciting tools out there for artists to leverage in their pursuit. If you’re an artist yourself or know someone who’s up and coming, I recommend you start by checking out this creative suite of web3 tools.
There’s plenty more out there and even more in development. Familiarizing yourself with these new tools is the first step. Setting up your digital wallet is the second step ;)
If you’re creative or interested in getting started in the creator economy, this is the time to get excited. The opportunities available to you are endless and web3 is supercharging the possibilities. 20 true fans. That’s it.
