I am working to build a platform cooperative for podcasting, and I am looking at innovative ways to incentivize volunteers building this platform. I came across SC as an interesting way to link Cred to future compensation. Let me tell you more about our cooperative and how I would imagine this working.
VNGRD - A platform cooperative for podcasting. Platform cooperativism is a movement to take back ownership of the internet by owning the platforms on which we transact & interact. The business structure for platform cooperatives are often multi-stakeholder cooperatives, and the governance of those bodies are built for decentralization.
Ampled is a concrete example of this, and they’re doing for musicians what I’m trying to do with podcasters (roughly). Under the “Worker-Members” subheader is where I think SourceCred + crowdfunding (once the product is built) could be used. It could be a way for developers to willingly opt-in to working on a product and getting paid a portion of whatever is crowdfunded at launch based on Cred. They would also have the opportunity to become a worker-member.
The high-level functionality of VNGRD would be as follows: podcasters get paid by users for premium episodes and the platform cuts a cut of their earnings. Users and podcasters will like this platform because it will allow better community-fostering than current implementations like Patreon which just has commenting on episodes.
Of course this functionality could change in the future as I conduct interviews for my podcast about starting a platform cooperative for podcasting. But you get the basic idea - it’s a marketplace. Marketplaces are ripe for DAO-ifying and if we can build a completely on-chain media organization, imagine the possibilities.
Perhaps you’re thinking about how a product like this could rapidly generate revenue once launched. Chapo Trap House earns over $150k per month, and I have a connection to a producer at Chapo thru Ampled & we’re all in Brooklyn. Platform cooperativism is going to be a necessary stepping stone in getting from traditional media to decentralized media.
Once we decentralize media with content creators having the choice to be compensated in crypto (issued by the platform) or state-issued fiat, perhaps we’ll see another radical shift in media, politics, economy. I don’t know how to convince you that we must allow journalists the most choice in how to be paid & ideally paid anonymously. I see dark times ahead (thinking about what governments are doing to Assange, Manning, Snowden, & now Glenn Greenwald).
Perhaps you’re wondering, why podcasts? Short answer: I like them! Ok why not podcasts AND video (to get Youtuber/Twitch communities)? Like I keep saying, platform cooperativism is a movement, and it is (I think) good advice to have a very specific market entry point so that the content creators get to form communities around that specific media form. Human centered design is cool.
Please let me know at least what you think about the prospect of using SourceCred to integrate with platform coop repositories to incentivize development and collaboration. If you’re interested in learning more about the project, PM me.