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Chocobozzz / PeerTube

ActivityPub-federated video streaming platform using P2P directly in your web browser
https://joinpeertube.org/
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
12.74k stars 1.46k forks source link

Monetization | A list of ethical and privacy-respecting ways Peertubers can make money #1586

Open ghost opened 5 years ago

ghost commented 5 years ago

If someone chooses to monetize their videos, what ethical options do they have? Let's suggest ways (technical and non technical) for Peertubers to earn money.

First lets include the official suggestion from joinpeertube.org:

  the solution proposed to people who upload videos is to use the "support" button under the video. This button displays a frame in which people who upload videos can display text, images, and links freely. For example, it’s possible to put a link to Patreon, Tipeee, Paypal, Liberapay (or any other solution) there.

A suggestion I could think of:

What's yours? Let's expand the list.

:warning: What we probably want to avoid, is a monetization system that favors the users of big instances. This will kill decentralization. A PeerTuber should never have to think like: "If I join this big xyz instance I will make much more money as opposed to joining a recently created instance."

Nutomic commented 5 years ago

Another option would be Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency. The good thing about that is that all the software is open source, and easy to automate. The simplest way to implement this would be just show an address where users can send money to. Ideally it would create a new address for each donation for privacy reasons (so it is harder to tell how much money someone received, or who they received money from).

Another option would be to integrate Liberapay support.

axelsimon commented 5 years ago

I think cleanly integrating things such as Liberapay, Patreon and the likes, and actually working with those entities to make sure it works well, could make a huge difference.

Peertube as a global platform will only be as successful as it is successful with content creators. Without content creators wanting to use it, it will essentially be a backup solution for Youtube videos and the playground for a few convinced video makers.

Cryptocurrency integration, while interesting on paper, is not likely to be useful anytime soon, given most people have no idea how to use Bitcoin, Ether or anything else.

I agree encouraging ads would be counter-productive, as this is not the Internet PeerTube is pushing for. However, Read the Docs explanation about "ethical ads" might still be worth the read and consideration.

therahedwig commented 5 years ago

Patreon has an API that can be integrated with, but liberapay and open collective do not. Nor does kofi. Liberapay explains that they are not a 'paywall' service like they imply Patreon is, but a donation platform(you're not supossed to be giving perks to people when they donate as that can be seen as selling a service instead).

For someone to self-host a paywall service, they'd proly have to implement a customer relation manager(like civicrm) to keep track of their contacts, implement a payment provider to get money, and finally get peertube to give access to content depending on the state of a contact in the CRM...

So, to be able to implement a paywall like system peertube by itself would need to have both the ability to set permission to view on certain videos(or at the very least have a list of people to notify for certain videos), as well as API to control that programmatically(or for all videos of a certain type in a channel). I suspect this is also necessary for Patreon integration or any other such service.

You could extend this to little medals/ribbons etc for commenters who are supporting the show financially.

Of course, looking at this I feel the instinct wriggle that better moderation needs to be done first, especially things like a channel giving other people the ability to moderate a channel's community, as this is really the biggest time-sink for any moderately popular artist on social media, but this is a completely different topic.

elevenpassin commented 5 years ago

https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/1521#issuecomment-451401571

therahedwig commented 5 years ago

Given the recent weird thing youtube is doing where it is demonitising channels because they might be advertiser unfriendly, I think it might be worth it to think about how an alternative approach to this can be handled.

First things first, marketting people are people too. They want to do work and tell their boss they did work good. So there is a market for making things easy on marketting people. The youtube issues right now is that youtube is not able to garantuee that adverts appear on wholesome channels so that people will not associate the brand with horrible things(horrible videos, horrible people in the comments) happening on the channel.

One of the main things about the fediverse is that moderation is human. Decentralization makes this feasible. So, technically speaking, a peertube instance can actually make a promise towards advertisers saying 'this is an instance only for children's videos', 'this is an instance only for technology', 'this is an instance only for art' and that the terms of service are followed very very closely. The ability to say this is super prestigious, and I think peertube instances could ask more money than the equivelant youtube video due this.

It is also important that peertube instances ask for more money, because there's a reason youtube doesn't do proper human moderation: it is expensive.

So, then, thinking in terms what is technically needed for this:

Now, for the ads themselves, they might either... come from a 3rd party, or come from an instance pool of ads.

3rd party adverts would be more in line with peertube's current stance towards advertisement("er, make a plugin"). There would need to be some kind of service that allows receiving info about videos and sending statistics towards such a service.

An instance pool on the other hand would be closer full integration, but there is a very good argument to be made for this: The less middlemen between the advertiser and the video creator, the more the video creator has power to negotiate a fair price. If you have a 3rd party system, the 3rd party could turn out to be something big like google, who'd benefit from having super low prices for everyone and for hiding to advertisers where their videos are going to end up. But not every video creator is equal, advertisers want the channels which are popular and are well moderated.

I think we should keep a sharp eye on what is possible to ensure that these super valuable channels(where people work hard to output quality content and keep a civil atmosphere) have a strong position when negotiating versus advertisers, because advertisers want to be able to share in the cultural and social capital these channels have accumulated, and I think channels should be rewarded for that.

Sorry if this comes across as a bit rambly, but I really wanted to get that last paragraph across. It is not in the favor of advert giants to let this negotiation be possible, and I would like video creators to not have to advertise for a pittance, much like I wouldn't want to see illustrators work for 'exposure'.

Booteille commented 5 years ago

I would prefer to avoid totally any form of advertisement. I think this encourage the marketing and I think it's a terrible thing.

Enabling any form of advertisement would inevitably lead to derives, I think. Where channels would just upload a lot of shorts videos just to get as much as money as they can. We saw that with YouTube. I don't want to have the same schema with PeerTube.

I think the more ethical approach is something already said on this topic: Having the possibility to directly give money to instances owner and video creators. Having something integrated (with addons) would be the best scenario. With the possibility for instances owner to display publicly how much they need and to automatically give them fees when paying creators.

ROBERT-MCDOWELL commented 5 years ago

an who will judge if a channel, video or comment is horrible or not? the minister of conscience? YT started already an Owelian insanity, so now you want peertube doing the same? well, sad times....

zicmama commented 5 years ago

You could use Duniter Libre Currency! Each Peertube Node would have 2 Ḡ1 wallet filled with an initial amount. Then each actions in Peertube could initiate 0,01 Ḡ1 transfer +/- beetween wallets with Metadata as Comment.

There is python API like https://git.duniter.org/clients/python/duniterpy

If you want to know more about "Monnaie Libre" project? https://monnaie-libre.fr

Booteille commented 5 years ago

You could use Duniter Libre Currency! Each Peertube Node would have 2 Ḡ1 wallet filled with an initial amount. Then each actions in Peertube could initiate 0,01 Ḡ1 transfer +/- beetween wallets with Metadata as Comment.

There is python API like https://git.duniter.org/clients/python/duniterpy

If you want to know more about "Monnaie Libre" project? https://monnaie-libre.fr

I am not an expert about cryptocurrencies but does it work in the same way as Bitcoin? Needing miners calculate things to generate money?

Because it seems to be extremely polluting (because it asks a lot of energy) and I don't think PeerTube should be associated with this kind of practices.

But if it's energy-friendly why not!

zicmama commented 5 years ago

I am not an expert about cryptocurrencies but does it work in the same way as Bitcoin? Needing miners calculate things to generate money?

Because it seems to be extremely polluting (because it asks a lot of energy) and I don't think PeerTube should be associated with this kind of practices.

But if it's energy-friendly why not!

This is energy efficient, because there is no competition for mining blocks (and no token reward), members are forging new blocks in a peaceful equivalent way and generate an equal part of Libre Currency every day as everyone. See details http://duniter.org/

Booteille commented 5 years ago

Okay. Glad to read that! I'll read further about it!

elevenpassin commented 5 years ago

I totally agree with @Booteille

I don't think advertisements are good for Peertube's ecosystem. Instead, I prefer the patreon/librepay method of supporting your favourite channels via monthly, one time and yearly subscriptions will go a long way! Advertisements can easily mess up the whole ecosystem and push the whole peertube ecosystem towards youtube's hell of attention craving ecosystem. I also fear that advertisements will inevitably also hit the roots of Peertube's development & will likely effect the course of Peertube over time.

therahedwig commented 5 years ago

Coming back to this again:

Thinking about paywalls, what might also be interesting, and needs a bit of work on peertube's side:

Instead of accessing the latest video over a paywall, rather, access the archives. A video maker would just upload their videos, and the latest video would be watchable for free, but archive access requires subscription.

This is similar to how broadcast tv has worked for years, and we know that fans of a show will want access to previous versions.

This will require Peertube to be able to limit access to a once public video reliably, which is tricky with federation.

elevenpassin commented 5 years ago

@therahedwig I am attracted to the inverted version of this model. Think paid latest sessions, and eventually they become cheaper, and then free. So content which is in demand is at a higher cost and if you want to watch something for free you'll have to wait for the demand to go down?

therahedwig commented 5 years ago

@therahedwig I am attracted to the inverted version of this model. Think paid latest sessions, and eventually they become cheaper, and then free. So content which is in demand is at a higher cost and if you want to watch something for free you'll have to wait for the demand to go down?

I think in the end it'll be a per-channel type of thing. A narrative driven show might paywall the latest episode, but a video essayist might want to make their last video public and paywall the previous ones, as in the case of the show, viewers will want to know how it continues, while in the case of the video essayist, it is important to them to have the videos that are part of the current discourse to be public. A cooking channel could do great with either method, I think.

ZenoArrow commented 4 years ago

I've been thinking about the ethical payments side of PeerTube for about a day now, and have got a collection of ideas that I'd be interested in hearing feedback on.

Just to get this out of the way first, I agree with keeping advertising support to an absolute minimum, partly because it gives advertisers influence that they need not have and partly because it often has a detrimental effect on creative content.

However, if PeerTube is going to grow, we should be honest with ourselves that file storage and Internet bandwidth doesn't come for free, and it will almost certainly be tricky for PeerTube to provide a healthy alternative to YouTube if purely relying on the altruism of early adopters.

What I had in mind was a service that is very similar to Flattr, which pays creators based on splitting a recurring fee that users pay to support them.

https://flattr.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr

On some level, using the standard Flattr service would be a good step forward (if Flattr chose to support PeerTube), but I think we have the potential to offer something even better.

Something that struck me is that IPFS and PeerTube could work very well together.

https://ipfs.io/

For those that are unfamiliar with IPFS, the simplest explanation I can think of is that it's a decentralised peer-to-peer file system. Users that host content on IPFS will have the option of being paid in a currency called Filecoin (I think it's still under development, not quite ready for widespread use yet), which helps to ensure they're not left out of pocket for the service they provide. Two nice features of Filecoin compared to many cryptocurrencies are that the currency is earned by producing a tangible good (file storage) and that earning currency does not involve highly energy intensive processes (from my limited knowledge, earning Filecoin seems to be based on providing proof that the storage you have indicated is available for IPFS to use is truly available).

So how does this link to PeerTube? Firstly, considering that it's possible to run torrent sites on IPFS, in principal it's possible to run a PeerTube instance on IPFS. As an example, there's a torrent site called Torrent Paradise that runs on top of IPFS:

https://medium.com/chainrift-research/ipfs-powered-torrent-paradise-is-decentralized-and-invulnerable-fde51a0bc4d6

By running a PeerTube instance on IPFS, aside from enabling a PeerTube instance to make use of the extra storage capacity that IPFS could provide, it also means we can make use of Filecoin to help keep this PeerTube instance alive.

Now that I've set the scene, hopefully the rest of this idea is easier to explain. Imagine a Flattr-like service for PeerTube where users buy Filecoin, which is then split between file hosts and content creators. File hosts would be paid off first to keep the service going, and all remaining funds would be split amongst content creators (based on the same approach used by Flattr).

One potential downside I can currently see with this plan is that I'm not 100% sure how fast it is to access content on IPFS, but it should be possible to test out whether the performance would be adequate. Another potential downside is that it may end up limiting the hosting options available for paid PeerTube instances, which is something to guard against. Also, there may be simpler ways of achieving the main benefits of what I've set out, I'm open to suggestions.

Any thoughts?

Aluriak commented 4 years ago

Any thoughts?

Flattr is a wonderful idea (but centralized, unfortunately). Integration with Peertube should be studied along the one with patreon, tipeee and liberapay, ASAP and KISS.

Filecoin is interesting. For creators, it would be a simple way to have their videos somewhere in exchange of some price. It enables any creator with some money to have their videos online, and the price is an incentive to become host themselves.

IPFS is a very good tech ; but it's just starting to grow. I'm not sure Peertube should do anything for it now, but in the long run those two may work together. Like having Peertube be able to serve as an IPFS gateway for videos (which could be in turn plugged with the Filecoin system).

  1. For the moment, the easy thing is to allow channels to show buttons toward arbitrary websites with an icon next to each video. This way, creators can easily reference their patreon and alike. (interface-wise: an horizontal list of "buttons", populated using two widgets : a drop-down list of icons (taken from font-awesome + icons of some big providers like patreon + the "upload icon" enabling arbitrary image), and an url to fill. Hit enter: the button is added to the video)

  2. Next step would be to provide a more integrated interface for some website (e.g. patreon may provide statistics about money raised and goals, youtube could provide number of view, etc).

  3. Then, sometime, the time for IPFS integration will come.

To me, the Fediverse on IPFS sounds like the next humanity goal, after the moon landing and internet invention. I may be biased.

MacroDeSatire commented 4 years ago

I'm so glad I've stumbled upon this discussion. I've been thinking about monetization on the platform, and I want to share some thoughts of my own and commenting on a lot of the ones mentioned here.

Adverts: My feelings about advertising (As we know it on say youtube with prerolls and banners) on the platform/network is a bit mixed. I'm not against it but I'm also wary of it. On one hand, I agree that with instances have greater control of their target audience where they can have it as niche as they like could be an advantage for creators and advertisers. Remember, the problem with ads on youtube has a bit of two-way street when it comes to all of the ad controversies on youtube. There are things that advertisers don't want their money supporting, and creators don't want certain ads appearing on their videos. In a decentralized system like Peertube, the advertisers and Peertube instance admins/creators have a bit more control of who's advertising to what like in the instance pool idea.

On the other hand, there is a number of problems with ads on the platform. I can see this splitting the network as some instances have both viewers and creators coming to Peertube instances to get away from advertisers trying to sell them stuff. I'm also skeptical of how cleanly the plugins would federate across the network, and if it can I would imagine the more grassroots instances that sync with an advertising instance would be alienated by that.

If anything, I see a lot of ads on Peertube (if it gets bigger in the future) coming from sponsors for creators or instances from what I see is currently possible. Of course, this is all theoretical.

Flattr I actually really like the idea of Flattr or Flattr-like product being used for the platform. From day one I wanted to see if Peertube might implement something like youtube red/Premium where the sub is split across the creators you watch, and instances you are one, and Flattr comes close to that vision.

If we could implement integration Flattr or make something similar to that on Peertube, that would make my day.

Though speaking of Flattr this is this other idea I've seen floating around that I like:

Retribute This is an interesting project I found on the Fediverse. While a lot for crowdfunding services are centralized, Retribute tries to aggregate all support options for a user/creator with the goal being eventually similar to Flattr/BAT: more interaction means more payment to the creator. It's only at the start of development and needs some work, but I love this idea. I hope it gains some traction in the future. https://eliotberriot.com/2019/06/09/introducing-retribute-a-decentralized-open-effort-to-support-creators.html https://eliotberriot.com/2019/06/16/retribute-technical-architecture.html

Coil/interledger (EDIT NEW EDITION)

Recently I just found out about https://coil.com/ this seems like a similar idea to flattr but sends a micropayment for users browsing the content. It uses a protocol called "Interledger Protocol RFC" for how it mediates the payment. I think having a plugin based on coil or from Interledger to make a peertube integrated version could be another micropayment option akin to youtube premium or flattr.

IPFS While I'm skeptical of cryptocurrencies, File Coin interests me for as file hosting solutions. I know Lbry is trying its hand at something similar in trying to rent out storage through their currency. The only thing that I would consider is that Peertube viewers don't necessarily come from Peertube itself. either coming from other parts of the Fediverse or accountless (probably using RSS to follow WOO!). I think those type of users needs to be considered as well for file coin exchanges. Voluntary of course.

Users Paying For Storage I can see this being an unpopular method for instances, but I can see it happening. Storage and bandwidth can be expensive so having users pay to be hosted is one method of doing this without a paywall if this something an instance is trying to avoid. With proper scaling, I can see it useful from people who occasionally upload something for the hell of it to those who are more interested in being self-employed through fan support one way or the other.

Cooperative Platform Method When I first came to the Fediverse, one of the mastodon instances I came across was Social.coop. It uses a cooperative style structure in its management. This instance is democratically run with users having some decision making power.

I feel it would be interesting to see instances that are governed by creators. After all, many creators have stated in the past a platform should be for the creators. How it would work is that members pay a membership fee that would cover the cost of operation. Depending on the governance structure, the creators would have a say in any decision on the instance or elect a board of members. Otherwise, the creators would be largely independent and using fan support and other methods for monetization.

In fact I found a french coop, p2p.legal, trying to do implement coop platforms with one being a peertube instance, tube.p2p.legal/. Though it seems that it plans to pay members through Duniter's ğ1 from what I've seen from a translation. Definitely and interesting way of going about this.

And those are all of my thoughts. I know some of the last ideas were more instance-centric than a creator, but are still ideas on how to keep them afloat. I definitely felt the need to contribute.

c-prompt commented 4 years ago

The primary reason I built a PeerTube instance was to experiment and determine how to best integrate it into my existing project that is all about people exchanging values and making a profit when they add value to others. I'm interested in your comments and ideas for integration as ethics and privacy are key aspects driving my project.

ghost commented 4 years ago

In my opinion you don't need to integrate a payment system into PeerTube. There are plenty of external services content creators can use to monetize their content. PeerTube should focus on improving the UI/UX for content creators and users, to attract them to the platform. Much of the bullshit content on youtube is specifically people looking to make a living out of it. What made youtube grow was the organic content people wanted to make because they wanted to make it. Then the flock of wannabe like, favourite, share, subscribe, follow my twitter and insta started happening.

In case you want to proceed, an integration with donorbox [1] would be non-intrusive and seamless.

[1] https://donorbox.org/

ZenoArrow commented 4 years ago

Donorbox seems like it could be a good platform for content creators, but we also need to think about how to fund content hosters. Relying on the spare bandwidth of personal internet connections is fine when PeerTube is small, but at some point (if PeerTube continues to grow) there's probably going to be a need for seedboxes, and they cost money. Content creators are free to choose whatever monetisation platform suits them best, but bandwidth doesn't come for free, and if we want to move away from the ad-supported model of sites like YouTube we need to tackle this head on.

zicmama commented 4 years ago

About monetization, maybe Peertube could use G1Tag associated to its media and nodes. https://www.g1sms.fr/fr/blog/g1tag

And use it to build a "file economy" between Nodes (readers) & Files (storage) as for CopyLaRadio Jukebox: https://www.copylaradio.com/blog/blog-1/post/jukebox-interplanetaire-9

ZenoArrow commented 4 years ago

I don't speak French, but from what I can see from the translated pages the Interplanetary Jukebox model seems interesting.

tilllt commented 4 years ago

Not to come across like the super capitalist asshole, but what exactly is the problem of having the option to plug-in a regular payment system which uses a standard money exchange (PayPal, Creditcard, maybe Bitcoin et Al.) and enable people to offer Video On Demand via Peertube as a platform?

rigelk commented 4 years ago

@tilllt please read our note in the FAQ. TLDR': it is better to write plugins (since we have a plugin API that allows such things).

tilllt commented 4 years ago

Absolutely no offense intended here, but I think you have a limited understanding of who might be interested in an independent video Streaming platform. The classical means in which YouTube is used (and in which creators that want to monetize) is similar to how commercial Free to View Television is financed. Which is advertisements or sponsorship.

Well and then there is a whole different tradition of monetization, which probably had its roots in Cinema and theater. You pay, then you can see the content. I studied filmmaking, I know a lot of indipendent filmmakers: the demands of presenting their work is different than a YouTube channel. There are a plethora of VoD platforms to accommodate that, recently even Vimeo and YouTube jumped that pay per view bandwagon. Then you have a difference between subscription based vod (Netflix, Mubi etc.) and pay per view (Amazon Video does that, realeyz, DocAlliance etc.pp.usually branded and / or curated to s subject i.e. only docs, only short films etc) ... This type of pay per view VoD is not at all discussed here, although I personally find it to be one of the most honest methods of accessing content. You wanna see something, you pay for it.

In any case I think it would be good to have this potential user group in mind as well, since there is nothing which gives filmmakers a really fair share of the VoD fee. Obviously, in a Peertube network, the ones that provide storage and bandwidth for this type of streaming would have to be paid somehow for their contribution, as well as a fee to the Peertube team itself. Still I bet it would be a much better deal than anything commercially offered. Another problematic issue would be that it would be necessary / desirable to have stats over the maximum amount of possible streams and at which bandwidth. Filmmakers are usually very concerned that their film is played in a decent quality, something which the average YouTuber doesn't care about at all.

trymeouteh commented 4 years ago

Peertube should make its own advertising platform were ads can me managed on a peertube instance or we can have peertube advertising instances that can connect to peertube instances. No third party needed, and ads can be privacy respecting.

Another option is a cryptocurreny and if that is the case I would suggest making a peertube token on the Tari blockchain platform with unlimited supply, Tari is a sidechain of Moneor and that way PeerTube token can have privacy built in by default.

ZenoArrow commented 4 years ago

Peertube should make its own advertising platform were ads can me managed on a peertube instance or we can have peertube advertising instances that can connect to peertube instances. No third party needed, and ads can be privacy respecting.

Relying on advertising to keep a platform afloat is like pissing on yourself to keep yourself warm, it works but it's messy and something that should only be done if you're desperate. Privacy concerns are just one of the downsides, the caustic effect it has on culture is arguably a much bigger issue.

Another option is a cryptocurreny and if that is the case I would suggest making a peertube token on the Tari blockchain platform with unlimited supply, Tari is a sidechain of Moneor and that way PeerTube token can have privacy built in by default.

Whether cryptocurrency or standard currency is used is up for debate, but it's not really the main issue. The main issue is how monetisation is integrated in the platform. If privacy is your main focus I can see why you'd be in favour of cryptocurrency, but we need to look at how the currency is distributed. Either we have something which requires manual work from users to manage (i.e. one off donations), in which case there's basically no limit on the type of funding platforms that can be used, or we look at building something more automated (such as paid subscriptions, to give one example), in which case it needs to be something more closely aligned with the platform.

To give an example of the latter, Twitch streamers get money for subscriptions, and this allows (some of) them to make a living just producing content. It doesn't matter if they're being paid in cryptocurrency or in dollars, what matters is that they're being paid.

iroskam commented 4 years ago

Interledger would allow users to pay in the currency of their choice and sellers to receive in the currency of their choice. Coil puts a nice interface and prefunded wallet in front of Interledger.

Creators should have options for how they want to monetize their content. Ads for users that don't want to pay, single payment, streamed payment, subscription. More options are better.

ZenoArrow commented 4 years ago

Interledger would allow users to pay in the currency of their choice and sellers to receive in the currency of their choice. Coil puts a nice interface and prefunded wallet in front of Interledger.

Creators should have options for how they want to monetize their content. Ads for users that don't want to pay, single payment, streamed payment, subscription. More options are better.

Generally choice is good, but ads have a damaging effect on a platform, at multiple levels. Online advertisers are used to being able to track the effectiveness of their ads, and run targetted ads based on demographics they have deemed to be most likely to buy their product. Start introducing ads and you've introduced a slippery slope towards greater tracking of users. For this reason (and others, like the damage that advertising has on public discourse), I would suggest ads should be strongly resisted. Aside from that, I have no issue with offering multiple payment options.

AndreaMonzini commented 4 years ago

In my personal opinion a system to manage the Adverts is not the way to go for several reasons: 1 - Adverts usually ruin the experience ( in my case at least ). 2 - Adverts monetize with very high number of views ( not Peertube videos case for now ) 3 - Adverts works better as targeted advertising and therefore with privacy limitation.

But Peertube Creators, even with lower views, have stronger connection with viewers so in my opinion a direct support would work better like direct donations, recurring donations, crowdfunding.

Another way is to simple use the sponsors inside the video so it would be a part of the video production.

ghost commented 4 years ago

Monetization option for server admins

Lucas-C commented 4 years ago

I am myself comparing various "donation" websites at the moment. I recommend this very detailed comparative guide on the subject of Crowdfunding / Fundraising services : https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfunding

Chocobozzz commented 3 years ago

From: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/3131

After spending some time on PeerTube instances and other federated social media, I can't help but shake the feeling that they might benefit from Web Monetization support. For those who don't know, Web Monetization is an open standard and JavaScript API that allows users to automatically send a small amount of money continuously to a site while the user is on a page. It's been proposed as a W3C web standard and is already used by sites like Imgur, Twitch, Hackernoon, and others. I can't help but feel PeerTube is the most natural fit for this.

I think it has a number of key benefits:

Decentralized: anyone can create a Web Monetization provider or wallet. Automatic: doesn't require that users actively support each individual. Monetization is based solely on engagement from Web Monetization-enabled users. Easy integration: all that is needed to start monetizing is a meta tag on a webpage. And it has no effect on users not using the standard. Support for Instances and Users: payment pointers can be added for content creators on their videos and pages, and for the instance as a whole in discovery pages and unmonetized videos. Multiplexing options also exist, to support multiple payment pointers at the same time. Not Cryptocurrency: doesn't requires users or creators to buy into a new crypto or ecosystem. It's real money moving from users to creators, and it's not tied to any one corner of the internet. No Tracking, No Ads: has a similar passive support mechanism to ad-based monetization, without the icky surveillance capitalism.

If this is something people think is worthwhile, I'd love to start working on it. If they think it fits better as a plugin, I'd be happy to develop that as well once the new plugin system is unveiled.

ROBERT-MCDOWELL commented 3 years ago

Sorry for my stupid question about monetization, but from the start, WHO pays?

LuckierDodge commented 3 years ago

@ROBERT-MCDOWELL well, that depends. From the "start", instance admins and content creators, paying to create and host content. Monetization is a mechanism for compensating those individuals, who are taking on costs in the first place, for the time/effort/resources etc. Most monetization setups involve users paying through some means, whether by regular micro-payments or through one time macro-payments or recurring subscriptions. Some others involve Proof-of-Work style crypto, where no one pays, per se, so much as "money" is created through the act of consuming the content. There is, of course, also advertising, where advertisers pay to get those sweet, sweet viewers.

Also, thanks for linking me to this thread @Chocobozzz, this is exactly the issue I was searching for but couldn't find myself. I'm going to write a Web Monetization plugin, will report back once I get 'round to it.

samlich commented 3 years ago

@LuckierDodge I've just received funding from Grant for the Web to implement this. Sorry I didn't say something earlier, I applied back in June and forgot about it until they selected the projects just now.

So far I've just setup a plugin which adds a meta tag with a hard-coded payee and starts sending money when someone visits a video. Next week I'll add the settings for an uploader to set their payment pointer and have it take affect. At that point I'll also publish updates to npm as there will be basic functionality.

As a general summary of what the current ecosystem supports, one can sign up with Coil for $5/mo and install their extension. When a site with Web Monetization support is visited, they pay a fixed amount per time through a stream of very small payments to the address specified by the site. The site can stop the payments and change the recipient at any time. The site gets a different random identifier for each payment stream, so the user cannot be identified. To receive payments, an account is needed that can receive Interledger payments for which there is currently GateHub and Uphold. Then a payment pointer, a url with invalid syntax for aesthetics, can be generated.

I will post more updates here and to this issue when I publish to npm.

LuckierDodge commented 3 years ago

@samlich congrats on the funding, that's terrific! Good thing too, since grad school hit me hard and I haven't gotten around to working on this yet. No wasted effort, at least. If you need an extra set of eyes/hands during development, feel free to ping me, I'd be more than happy to help out.

samlich commented 3 years ago

@LuckierDodge Thanks, and good luck in grad school.

samlich commented 3 years ago

Long overdue, but here is a plugin https://www.npmjs.com/package/peertube-plugin-web-monetization (although you'll have to wait for v0.1.4 to be indexed by PeerTube as v0.1.3 doesn't have the dist folder). It provides a payment pointer associated with a video to the browser, and monitors payments. Sponsor segments can be specified using the chapters plugin, and they will be skipped if the user is paying. The uploader can set a minimum rate to skip sponsors, and a minimum rate to view the video at all. This is currently only enforced client-side.

It keeps track of which parts of the video have been paid for, and does not double pay. This information is lost at the next page navigation, but the intent is to optionally store this for the user and optionally also for aggregate statistics for the uploader.

I've uploaded several test videos. This one will only play if at least 1e-5 XRP/s is paid, where Coil seems to pay around 2.4e-4 XRP/s (you may need to scroll the page for the modal to appear after the video pauses).

The format of the payment pointer is validated in the video update page, but not in the publish page. I'm not sure why yet.

vadim-frolov commented 2 years ago

Fast-forward to the end of 2021, donations are getting more popular and widely adopted - most major social platforms have an implementation. And PeerTube is in the best position to make use of the trend.

A good solution that meets PeerTube requirements and values apparently needs to be decentralized both technically and financially - it wouldn't help much if your donations are routed via a crypto exchange that forces you to KYC and is prone to leaks. Besides, there's no point in replacing the arbitrage of centralized donation processors with crypto holders and miners - donations can be more efficiently decentralized without middlemen.

I develop a free nonprofit micro-donation processor with a focus on privacy and freedom. Thumb-up triggered or recurring micro-donations: transparent and optionally anonymous with no service fees, possibly connected to PeerTube keys so that spontaneous donations don’t require additional clicks for checkout. Instance domain owners can choose to receive a share to make hosting sustainable and scalable.

https://blog.smartlike.org/about What do you think?

ZenoArrow commented 2 years ago

Fast-forward to the end of 2021, donations are getting more popular and widely adopted - most major social platforms have an implementation. And PeerTube is in the best position to make use of the trend.

A good solution that meets PeerTube requirements and values apparently needs to be decentralized both technically and financially - it wouldn't help much if your donations are routed via a crypto exchange that forces you to KYC and is prone to leaks. Besides, there's no point in replacing the arbitrage of centralized donation processors with crypto holders and miners - donations can be more efficiently decentralized without middlemen.

I develop a free nonprofit micro-donation processor with a focus on privacy and freedom. Thumb-up triggered or recurring micro-donations: transparent and optionally anonymous with no service fees, possibly connected to PeerTube keys so that spontaneous donations don’t require additional clicks for checkout. Instance domain owners can choose to receive a share to make hosting sustainable and scalable.

https://blog.smartlike.org/about What do you think?

How does this compare to the Web Monetization plugin that has already been developed?

vadim-frolov commented 2 years ago

I think that both can coexist and find their users. Whichever works best for PeerTube.

The Web3 approach of Web Monetization W3C standard proposal is trendy, but is it really a universal fit to shape human relationships between authors and their fans by money, make it a marketplace, impose paywalls or taximeters that tick while you watch videos?

I believe some might rather prefer to have:

vadim-frolov commented 2 years ago

I prototyped an integration for micro-donations. Dear community, @Chocobozzz , could you please take a look to verify if it meets your ethical and privacy requirements?

Thank you!

arucard21 commented 2 years ago

TL;DR I think Web Monetization can be an ethical replacement for ad revenue and should be implemented to behave similar to ad revenue.

Looking through some monetization options on Wikipedia, I found that there are basically the following options for paying content creators:

Not all of these options are ethical and privacy-respecting. Advertisements and data monetization are tied into unethical surveillance capitalism. While advertisements can be done ethically, they are often still annoying for users to see and take up bandwidth to download. Of course, any content creator may still choose to use advertising within their content directly. Sponsors and product placement are reasonable monetization options, if used correctly. They are already supported, as they are just part of the content, and it doesn't make sense to try and discourage this option, as it is entirely up to the content creator.

Affiliate marketing can be done by the content creators already, as it only requires them providing their affiliate link somewhere. Perhaps some special section could be provided in Peertube for showing such links. Maybe together with some other options like donation links.

Donations could also be supported ethically. Like with affiliate marketing, this is usually just a matter of sharing donation links. This could be supported by providing a dedicated section for such links. The biggest problem with this (and affiliate marketing) would be to design a good user experience for it, that increases the likelihood of users supporting the content creator through those links.

If you want to go beyond just supporting donation links, it may be possible to incorporate some donor incentives in Peertube. Something like a "Donor" tag next to their user name maybe. These incentives should be entirely secondary to the content itself as you do not want this to become a way to pay for the content. I think it may be quite difficult to do something like this in a good way. You don't want this to become gimmicky.

While subscriptions can be done ethically, I think this will likely have a negative impact on content creators. This is just not how people are used to interacting with content creators anymore. Nowadays, people tend to find the content first, and then choose whether or not to support the creator.

Web Monetization, which already has a plugin in Peertube now, uses streaming micropayments which seems to be somewhere in between subscriptions and donations. However, from the user's perspective (at least when using Coil), this is just a monthly subscription ($5 per month, to be exact). Though from the content creator's perspective, this doesn't really work like a subscription due to how Coil works. Coil has a fixed rate at which it will stream payment to content creators ($0.0001 per second or $0.36 per hour). And it will never exceed the $5 amount per month, which it does by reducing the rate after $4.50 has been spent in that month. Since neither the user nor the content creator can influence this payment rate, it seems better to think of this as a donation rather than a subscription. In fact, from the content creator's perspective this concept does not seem that different from CPM advertisements (without the unethical mess).

Based on how I understand web monetization and Coil to work, I think there may be a bit of a problem with the web monetization plugin. I haven't used the plugin or Coil myself, I only read the documentation. So feel free to correct me if I misunderstood something. I think the problem with the plugin is in its approach to monetization. It seems to focus on "paying for content" instead of "supporting the content creator". This resulted in features like a minimum rate, which is something the user actually cannot influence in Coil. Or tracking whether a video was paid to avoid paying multiple times, even though the content creator created content that was apparently good enough for you to watch multiple times. Keep in mind that the user will always pay $5 per month with Coil, so this only reduces the amount that the content creator receives.

With the idea of "supporting the content creator" in mind, I think the monetization options of affiliate links and donations are the most obvious. These can already be provided alongside the content though but these options are also available in any other platform.

What is missing, is something that can replace the ad revenue that other platforms can provide, in an ethical and privacy-preserving way. To me, web monetization does seem like a suitable option for this, given how Coil seems to work quite similar to ad revenue. So I think it makes to make this work with Peertube similar to how ad revenue would work. So Peertube should allow a Peertube channel to fill in their payment pointer. This would enable monetization for all content on that channel (which would need to be implemented in Peertube and should be similar to what the plugin already allows for). Optionally, there could be a per-video override to allow the content creator to make it entirely free. Perhaps they have content that they would choose not to monetize. The viewer could then decide to support the creator by paying to be a Coil Member and having the Coil extension enabled in their browser. While not everyone will choose to be a Coil Member, this could still be comparable to ad revenue. Since people can use ad blockers to avoid ad revenue as well, there are plenty of people that consume content without triggering ad revenue.

I hope this helps with choosing a direction on how to allow for monetization in Peertube to make it a viable platform for content creators.

ZenoArrow commented 2 years ago

With the idea of "supporting the content creator" in mind, I think the monetization options of affiliate links and donations are the most obvious.

Why? Donations are fine, but why are affiliate links amongst the "most obvious" ways to support creators? Affiliate links have similar conflicts of interest as other advertising methods.

Aside from this, I don't think there's a need to replace services like Patreon, Tipeee and Liberapay that already offer the ability to sponsor your favourite creators, what is more important in my opinion is supporting the entire PeerTube ecosystem. Monetisation efforts that only target content creators are missing the bigger picture.

arucard21 commented 2 years ago

Fair points. I meant it in the sense that they are easiest to support. I agree with your point about affiliate links but they seemed similar enough to donation links that it seemed fine to support them. Though I don't really have a strong opinion about affiliate links in particular.

I was definitely not suggesting to replace services like Patreon and the likes. I was suggesting that we could tie into those kinds of services. So a link to those services would make the most sense. Going beyond that, like providing donor incentives, may not even be a good idea. I thought it might be too gimmicky but your point about leaving that to services that specialize in it is an even stronger argument for me.

Monetisation efforts that only target content creators are missing the bigger picture.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I focused on content creators because this issue is about "... ways Peertubers can make money". I think Peertubers are content creators but I'm curious to hear what I'm missing.

ZenoArrow commented 2 years ago

I meant it in the sense that they are easiest to support.

Easiest to implement doesn't necessarily mean best. If there's a better option that's slightly harder to implement, it still remains better overall.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I focused on content creators because this issue is about "... ways Peertubers can make money". I think Peertubers are content creators but I'm curious to hear what I'm missing.

The conversation started with supporting content creators, but other ideas have emerged since. Think about it, do you think it's enough just to support content creators and not support the platform itself? For example, scaling a PeerTube instance to YouTube-like levels would take a lot more than just being able to support content creators.

mpeter50 commented 2 years ago

While subscriptions can be done ethically, I think this will likely have a negative impact on content creators. This is just not how people are used to interacting with content creators anymore. Nowadays, people tend to find the content first, and then choose whether or not to support the creator.

Subscriptions don't need to work in a binary way, I think there are several tones of how subscriptions can be done. For simplicity, I'll also treat recurring donations as subscriptions in the following:

Donations/subscription can be incentivized by things like these:

Affiliate links have similar conflicts of interest as other advertising methods

Other advertising methods are usually based on individual data harvesting and profiling, while affiliate links are usually only tied to the name of the content creator. You're right that it is similar, but I don't think it's the same. It is a different level, I think.

For example, scaling a PeerTube instance to YouTube-like levels would take a lot more than just being able to support content creators.

@arucard21 they mean that there should also be a way to support the PeerTube instance that hosts the content creator. A very basic way of doing that is that the content creators could manually support the instance on Liberapay, but of course that is not a stable option. It might be worth coordinating with the Liberapay devs to design a feature that would mean the platform takes x% of the amount of donations going to the creators it hosts, and this could be "enforced" by the donor button that appears on the creator's channel. For example there would be a minimum rate defined by the instance, which would go purely for maintenance, and the user could raise that to further support the creator or the instance. At that point it could also be considered to not only channel some mones to the instance, but to the developers of PeerTube too.. Some kind of a "dependency" system: content creator depends on the instance, but the instance depends on PeerTube devs, so by supporting the creator by default you also support the entities on who the creator depends. I think other kinds of distributed services could also benefit from something like this.

So in the end, I think a good approach could be integrating payment platforms like Liberapay into Peertube and building functionality around that. Of course, that functionality could be also used without being a subscriber, when it makes sense.

arucard21 commented 2 years ago

Those are some interesting suggestions for the incentives. I didn't really know much about that but they seem pretty cool.

As for monetization for platform, I think that would indeed be necessary. My first guess is that content creators would donate periodically to the platform they are on. Just like how users of open-source software tend to donate to the open-source software projects that they use. So perhaps something can be done to simplify this within Peertube. Though the problem with integrating any specific payment platform (like Liberapay) is that is effectively reduces all the others to second-class citizens for your platform. Though if we can support a decent selection of ethical payment platforms, this might actually be a good thing.

There may also be something that is possible with web monetization. It has the possibility to configure weighted revenue sharing. So you could configure it to have the Peertube instance take, let's say, 10% of the revenue for the content on its platform. The way this would work is that for 10% of the viewers, the payments get streamed to the wallet of the instance owner instead of the content creator. This could be made configurable by the instance owner and I think this should also be clearly made visible to all the content creators on that instance. You don't want the instance owner to hide how much of the revenue they actually take (probably).

An interesting (ethical) question with this approach is what to do when the instance owner has their web monetization set up but the content creator has not. Do you still enable monetization for that creator's content but send all the money to the instance owner? You don't have the necessary information for sending this money to the content creator and this doesn't the content creator or the viewer. The content creator would not get paid, regardless of whether the instance owner monetizes the content. And it doesn't make the viewer pay more since they have a fixed rate subscription. But the instance owner does make money off of someone else's content. And in theory, more money from that viewer could have gone to another content creator that did set up web monetization (if they end up going into the lower rate due to running out of money for that month). The practical implications are almost negligible but the question is still whether it is ethical for the instance owner to make money off of someone else's content, on which its creator doesn't even make any money. I would lean towards just having the instance owner take that money though, since the practical impact seems small. But I wouldn't necessarily say that that was ethical since I don't think I am qualified to judge that :smile:

I also found that Coil keeps any remainder from the $5 monthly subscription but also shares it with their affiliates that referred their members to them. I'm not sure what it actually takes to become a Coil affiliate but perhaps this is another way for the instance to get some revenue. Though I can't really think of ways that Peertube can help make this process any simpler. But in all fairness, I couldn't find anything about how to actually become a Coil affiliate.

These kinds of methods could benefit both content creators and instance owners so they seem quite promising to me. I think that people will generally use some combination of these methods so it makes sense to support many of them.