Why we need decentralized content curators
By Misha on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
We like to complain and bash middlemen that take a cut from profits — like Amazon taking 30–65% from my e-book revenue. While I’d rather not pay them, it personally doesn’t bother me too much.
I’m sure many authors will probably agree that it’s a small price to pay for the reach you achieve and consistency you get from a large platform like Kindle or blogging site like Medium. It’s a win-win, and it’s the reason why I continue to use these platforms instead of completely switching to the decentralized, blockchain-based Steemit (at least for now).
Of course, those that have an already sizeable audience are at a big advantage. They can just milk the traffic they have without incurring many expenses other than minimal web-hosting costs. Their audience will buy whatever they’re creating and they can pocket 100% of the money. They could even avoid Paypal/Stripe transaction fees if they switched to Stellar, which has an integration with WordPress. But it takes a lot more work to get there.
That doesn’t mean I’m happy with Kindle or Medium, though.
As a writer and a marketer there are many disadvantages. Here is where these traditional, centralized businesses like Amazon or Medium fall short.
Here’s what they can’t do.
#1 They can’t process micro-payments for shorter payment cycles.
I get paid e-book royalties once a month on Amazon. Why can’t I get paid within 5 minutes of someone making a purchase? Why do I have to wait 5 weeks to collect money from Medium and then an additional 3 days for my bank to process the transaction?
Cash flow is important for companies, and finance departments are set up to process payments in two-week or one-month cycles within the existing paradigm.
With decentralized blockchain platforms, this is no longer necessary.
#2 They don’t allow you to allocate royalties to multiple parties.
My friend proofread an e-book I wrote. An ex-colleague provided valuable feedback. A freelancer made the book cover. Several people provided quotes and insights.
And, not to mention, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my mom. Shouldn’t it be possible for me to allocate royalties (a few pennies) to all of these people simultaneously in a decentralized manner when I make a book sale? Perhaps it further incentivizes them to see me succeed and help out next time — after all, they would have skin in the game.
#3 There’s no flexibility in the platforms.
Kindle is not a decentralized crowdfunding platform — but it could be. Let’s say I put a book on pre-order 3 months in advance. People are excited about it. But I’m a writer and need to pay the bills. I need money for beer and coffee. What if there are 10 people who want to pay money up front (similar to a publisher advance, except not), say, $3,000 total. This would help me to write the book, and once it’s published they get a copy (duh) and a percentage of my royalties paid directly into their bank accounts to recoup the money they invested that made the book possible.
This royalty agreement could be set to expire after a certain amount of time or once the royalties match their investment. You could kind of do this on Kickstarter; but why can’t I leverage the same platform/Amazon audience?
Here’s a good explainer video by Decent (Dcore platform) that allows you to create revenue sharing, crowdfunding, and custom tokens as I described above. I’m thinking about these in terms of benefits for authors/bloggers but you can essentially apply it to any industry (starting a band/owning X business etc).
In sum…
There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to do that I can’t given these constraints, but all the ideas I mentioned are already possible using smart contracts.
Just waiting for the right entrepreneur to come along and sweep me off my feet.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, check out more of my thoughts on crypto in Bullish on Bitcoin.
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