A new revenue model: pay-per-awesome?

[twigletzone]

Title:
A new revenue model: pay-per-awesome?

Area:
Payment/revenue/keeping DW ad-free.

Summary:
After reading <user name=synechdochic>'s essay on the flaws in Web 2.0, I've had an idea for a potential new revenue stream for sites like Dreamwidth. I'd love to know what you guys think.

Description:
I recently re-read <user name=synechdochic>'s <a href="http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/234496.html">essay</a> on Web 2.0, and why the advertising model is doomed to failure. It made me think. I'm not an economist and have no experience of running an Internet business but the basic idea I had seems like common sense, so I'm throwing it out there for more experienced minds to consider.

<user name=synechdochic> suggests that the basic problem with the subscriber model is achieving sustainable revenue as the site grows over time. DW is young, and therefore small, and hasn't hit this problem yet. <user name=synechdochic> further suggests that the centralised model of revenue generation, in which the user is the product being sold to advertisers, quite rightly alienates users and creates a downward spiral of ever more intrusive advertisements.

Livejournal has attempted to generate extra revenue by allowing users to purchase gifts for other users - but all this provides for the user receiving it is an image to display on their profile page. The Archive Of Our Own has kudos points, which are free social status you can hand out to creators of content you enjoy. DW has a "Gift a random user" function that lets you donate paid time. What if all these ideas were linked up and taken one step further?

Imagine an opt-in system where users could pay to buy kudos points or something like them, which they can then donate to whoever created any piece of DW content they find particularly awesome. Kudos points could then be exchanged for site services like paid account time. Perhaps, if a user acquires a very high level of points in a certain time period, the excess could even be converted back into real-world money.

DW, as the provider of the platform that publishes this awesome content, could take a percentage from purchases of points - say that spending $10 buys 900 points instead of 1000, or something (where each point represents $0.01 worth of site services the recipient could buy with it). Or perhaps users could even choose what percentage of their point buy to pass to DW directly to help run and improve the site, and what percentage they want to convert into points they can donate to other users.

DW isn't meant to be a crowd-funding site so there would have to be some mechanism in place to stop users begging for points for content that hasn't yet been created. That's essentially a social problem, so the solution would probably have to be about DW's culture; policing anyone abusing the system, and clearly explaining the intentions of the system to start with. It would seem sensible to run it alongside the current subscriber model, so that people still have the option of contributing both socially and financially to DW without being dependent on other users' goodwill. Nobody should be denied a voice, after all.

The idea here is to stop the user becoming the product, and make the content the valuable thing instead; the financial model behind the site becomes more democratic since each individual user can be both a seller and a buyer. The users who produce the best content are materially rewarded for it by the community, and even those who don't have a lot to contribute in terms of content have a way of getting involved and showing their appreciation. Since DW contains a lot of fanfic, anonymous donations of kudos could even be made possible so that less family-friendly content can be appreciated without the donation being traceable to a particular account name. Any author who wants to keep their content free could simply opt out of receiving kudos for a particular post or a whole journal - whether that's because they believe information should be free to all or because the idea of being paid for writing adult fiction skeeves them out!

As I said, I'm neither an economist nor an experienced Web business person - just a left-leaning person with a reasonably good mind. And I do understand that implementing this would be a massive project. But - does this fit DW's philosophy, and could it be a model for the future?

Poll #9394 A new revenue model: pay-per-awesome?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 90

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
10 (11.1%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
9 (10.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
53 (58.9%)

(I have no opinion)
15 (16.7%)

(Other: please comment)
3 (3.3%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

The thing that makes me uneasy is that with a strictly money-tied "like", even if it's just $0.10 USD (the value of 1 point) -- users who don't have enough disposable income that they feel comfortable tying up some of it in a pool of Dreamwidth points might not even be able to *leave* "like" on something. I'm not okay with that idea.

I do like the idea of being *able* to send points along with the "like" if possible/wanted.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, Flattr _demands_ that you pay money, DW should obviously have a minimum payment of zero.

[deborah]

What I worry about this is that I am part of that group of people who not only dislike "like" but would actively want to turn it off on my own journal (and I know from the prior discussions that there are plenty of people who feel the same way). If there is a point allocation system that only works with a "like" button that means you either have to turn on this thing that many members of the site don't want, or you are opting out of the system that allows people to gift you.

... Come to think of it, plenty of people would probably want to opt out of a system which involve other people giving them money, and I think that that would be a different group of people from those who don't want a "like" button.

so I am not fond of integrating the two.

[thorfinn]

I too like the flattr model, where you allocate a certain budget of points on a particular cycle (monthly? individually configured period?), and perhaps if you feel like it you can go and manually re-organise your points distribution before the cycle transfer date.

I'm unsure about placement of kudos buttons - user head pop-over? user profile? posts? comments? Everything? Hopefully they could be optionally turned on/off?

Then there is the question of opting in and out of kudos and/or points aspects - some individuals clearly want both, some one and not the other, and some neither. And then there's the extra variable of whether kudos and points transfers are anonymised or not.

I'm thinking that users might be able to opt out of seeing kudos and/or points, but that could lead to distinct oddness if some users are able to see kudos and some aren't.

I think perhaps the only way this would work is if kudos ratings are invisible except between sender and receiver. So if you have a comment/post/whatever that's piling up kudos, the only person that knows it is yourself. And if you're being sent kudos anonymously, that's all you know too. As a kudos sender all you see is whether you've given kudos or not, and you don't see anyone else's. That possibly avoids some of the weirder "gamification" aspects of a kudos system.