In August 2019, the most popular Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins announced he was leaving Twitch for Microsoft’s Mixer. This had everyone wondering what would happen to Twitch with the most popular creator ripped from their platform. Well, nothing… Mixer failed and Ninja returned to Twitch 30 million dollars richer.
What is so special about Twitch that makes it seemingly immune to even the most powerful attempts at competition? It’s simple: Twitch was first. Just like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and all of the other social media monopolies were first in their respective classes.
Social media platforms are like the favourite hang-out spots we all had in grade school. Once a spot is chosen it cannot be replaced unless you convince all of your friends to move together. One can imagine the impossibility of this task when a platform’s user base is in the billions. Users of social media platforms participate in the very monopolies that work against their own best interests.
Those who use social media platforms add value by posting content, interacting with others and simply by being present. It seems rather unfair that users grow these platforms but receive no share in the growth they create. Even content creators who make a living from the various platforms are still at the mercy of advertisers and algorithms.
Let’s consider things from the side of a small-to-medium sized content creator who uses a given platform. In this example, our creator Emma makes niche jewellery and art tutorials. Emma isn’t interested in selling her artwork as her goal is to teach others how to make their own. Despite having a keenly interested audience that she has worked hard to acquire, her videos barely make any ad revenue. We’ll come back to Emma after a message from our sponsors! just kidding.
Online Advertising 101:
Social media platforms are in the business of collecting your personal information so that they can push targeted advertisements to you. They can find out what interests you simply by compiling and categorizing the content you look at while using their platform. They also use other unscrupulous methods which approach straight-up spying on people, but that’s a rabbit hole we won’t get into right now.
All users are equal, but some users are more equal than others.
Using this data, the platform decides which new content and advertisements to serve users. All users might seem the same to you but not to the advertisers and corporations. They care about audience members who are in the market to purchase things and about creators who produce content that panders to these audiences. Children are particularly favoured by the algorithms because they are impressionable and likely to ask their parents to buy things for them. This value is applied to every user; if you just searched for a vacation package you’ve successfully become a more valued consumer to your favourite social media platform.
Now that the platforms have their users valued they can start disproportionately rewarding certain creators over others. They do this by featuring the content creators who serve these audiences and putting more lucrative advertisements on their content. These creators then grow because they are being disproportionately featured to users and have more money to fund themselves.
It is not hard to picture how this process becomes an Orwellian nightmare where online entertainment turns into a giant cable TV shopping network. One of the most exciting prospects of the early internet and the beginning of YouTube was the decentralization and utterly random content. Instead of watching 2–3 minute ads on network TV you could go online and watch content that was made to entertain, not just sell things.
Now Back to Our Regular Programming
So Emma spends her time producing thoughtful, helpful, and entertaining content. Her videos are concise and produced with the sole intention of educating others. Every time she posts she is attracting users to the platform and increasing its value. But alas, someone who adds such value to the platform receives a pittance in comparison to those who post nothing but morally dubious advertisements directed towards children.
So what’s a creator to do? Maybe some creators don’t mind making less in the name of providing content they are passionate about, but there’s a line. It is economically unfeasible for many creators to support themselves without selling out. This effect slowly transforms the landscape of online entertainment. It’s like a sort of natural selection where successful content creators pass down certain traits which permanently alter content. “Don’t forget to smash that like button” or “please like, comment and subscribe it really helps me out” If those phrases sound familiar you have witnessed these mutations already for yourself.
Some of the more pernicious mutations on YouTube include but are not limited to:
- Gambling/Mobile game advertisements
- Sponsorships embedded in videos
- Deceptive titles
- Non-representative/offensive thumbnails
- Purposely leaving substantive content to the end of videos
These are some of the symptoms of using content to farm advertisements rather than provide enjoyment to audiences. The goal of entertainment is to entertain people, not to sell things. Advertising helps keep entertainment free while also compensating creators, but it becomes a race to the bottom if left unchecked.
There is no doubt that the internet is becoming more centralized and it’s leading to a decline in the forms of entertainment we all enjoy. People have taken notice and are actively looking for solutions. From those fighting to protect Net Neutrality to the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) movement- there is an ever growing interest in the accessibility and equality of the internet going forward.
My Two Cents
In November of 2020, I had an idea: what if there was some way to more closely link creators and audiences so that third parties would have less of an influence on what we are exposed to? I called up my friend Zachary Bys who had just finished an internship at Facebook and started to mull over the intricacies of online creator compensation and advertising. We discussed the implications of better compensating content creators and how doing so would enable them to focus more squarely on their craft.
With the cryptocurrency and DeFi space gaining such notoriety over the last few months, we figured blockchain technology would make for a valuable tool in accomplishing our task. With that, Vodra was born- our effort to benefit both audiences and creators by limiting the influence of platforms and third-parties. Vodra is a decentralized donation platform with an accompanying utility token that allows creators to redeem the size of their audience and be rewarded with Vodra Tokens. These tokens can be used to send donations with no platform fees, vote on and fund upcoming projects, organize tournaments and other forms of community projects, or to invest in the growth of online entertainment without betting on specific platforms.
With creators across every platform being represented, those participating in the growth of online entertainment benefit- not just platforms, corporations, advertisers and other special interest groups. It is our hope that by funding content creators as a community, we can shift creators’ focus back to creating content that audiences genuinely want to see.
For updates on what we’re doing visit us at vodra.io or any of our social media platforms. As for myself, I will keep writing my thoughts and experiences along the way and sharing some of the unique perspectives I come across through this endeavour.
— Conner R.
