Hi everyone, Cheers Cofounder here.
We're trying to make the world a smaller place, connecting fans with those that make what they love, and enabling content creators. We'd love to hear feedback on our platform.
Cheers!
Any plans/interest in supporting dogecoin tips (sent as dogecoin to the artists). There community around dogecoin is, generally speaking, more amenable to tipping.
> There community around dogecoin is, generally speaking, more amenable to tipping
I disagree with this - Bitcoiners have been quite generous with tipping in the past, and it's been picking up again thanks to the ability to tip millionths of a bitcoin (informally called "bits") using ChangeTip.
Not that good. Will get trust from tech-savvy people, but I didn't notice, and 99% of all people certainly won't. Of course, the 1% are the ones likely to use BTC, but don't rest on your laurels once you are done with the SSL certs.
Good question. For now we're just trying to make a product that both fans and artists are excited about and will use - a product we'd want to use. And since our initial product is tipping, we're committed to never taking a fee on these transactions. In the future, we may build-out a premium artist account, allowing them to get analytics around what is being Cheered, and built a platform for them to engage with and grow their fanbase. Additionally, while tipping will always be free, we could turn on product commerce where we may take a small fee.
My main concern is that I don't see how they get any money out of it. Normally I'm fine with free services, for obvious reasons, but it strikes me as concerning that this requires quite a bit of work and money, both over the long term, but they have no visible payoff.
The only way I see it being viable in the long term is if they take our money. I'd like to see this as a % fee of some sort but I worry that it is either doomed or a scam.
Hi, thanks for posting your concerns, and I understand where you're coming from. Our visible payoff is creating a social network around payments - and while we will never charge fees on tips, there are many other services we can introduce to generate revenue. One example is later on allowing creators to actually sell their content on our network (to their fans) or having premium artist accounts to help them manage, engage and grow their fanbase. Other than this, can you think of any other ways we can convince you (and others) that we are not a scam?
We also have to look at a future where an artist like Justin Bieber could put up a BTC address on his Twitter profile. Taking a cut means the artist has a small reason to not want to sign up ("they take 1%-2%. I'm better off just sticking a BTC address on my Facebook").
We'll reach out to the artists and sign them up the Cheers - they will then be able to receive their tips in Bitcoin (recommended, and we'll help them set up a wallet) or fiat (slower, more complicated, minimum thresholds etc.). The exact process is still to be worked out.
So in other words, for this to work, you need to be able to contact and successfully convince any particular artist, anywhere in the world, to sign up for your service, after someone makes a donation? Or will you only allow donations to artists who have already signed on?
If it's the latter, your claim of being able to tip "any artist in the world" seems a bit disingenuous. If it's the former, do you just pocket the donations if the artist refuses to sign up?
This is really amazing. I hope your service receives a lot of success.
One problem is that many people don't have bitcoin even if it is the best way to pay. Many people are uncomfortable buying bitcoins.
Amazon micropayment service lets you pay with credit card
transaction anywhere from $0.05 to $9.99 with a 5% + .05 cent transaction fee. Which isn't as good as bitcoin but it is still pretty good as far as credit card fees go.
Many small micro-payments can really add up. This can be huge for content creators. I would really like to give tips to people who create educational science videos, open source software, open source hardware, write detailed tutorials for hardware and software projects, take the time to help me on forums, etc. Many content creators on the internet have helped me. I might not want to give a lot to each but I can give a small tip. Which can still make a difference to the creator if many people also do the same.
I think if they charged a fee for the tip it would be a more standard business model and people would not find it as exciting. It seems more direct to customer this way without the man in the middle dilemma for content creators. Also charging a fee in addition to the transaction fee would make it increasingly difficult to tip the creator a small amount. I think the fact they don't charge a fee on top of the transaction fee is out of necessity.
Hi, thanks for the feedback! We agree that for now Bitcoins constrict us to a relatively small community - which is why we will be supporting credit cards in the near future! (And thanks for the link to Amazon micropayments +1!)
We plan to launch with only Bitcoins, and shortly thereafter add on credit card payments to go more mainstream.
Our mission is to enable anyone to tip any creator anywhere in the world - so educational content and others are definitely included in this! Music is just the starting point.
It's complicated: the default fee is a bit like community consensus and this consensus has some inertia. Blockchain and Coinbase might still force you to overpay. Complain by sending support requests. Google: bitcoin default fee
> Many people are uncomfortable buying bitcoins.
sorry, care to explain this further ?
What is so uncomfortable about buying $10 worth of bitcoins for microtransactions ?
1. Consider providing a 'status' of the money tipped, so people know the artist actually got the money and they didn't send it into a blackhole.
2. Dogecoin is a must - shouldn't be too hard if you have Bitcoin already. The communities are very different.
3. Services like Tinkercoin allow you to buy a small amount of Bitcoin with credit card. Consider adding this info for the fans to get a small amount of Bitcoins.
4. There are some musicians in the space who are big into Bitcoin, like Tatiana Moroz. You can contact them to promote your site in the music and Bitcoin communities.
How will you avoid being sued by artist's representation (i.e. record labels, RIAA, etc)? I would also be highly concerned about validating the recipient of the money, especially since they're unlikely to reach out directly.
The best you could do is purchase music from the musician though the least-fee-laden service available, so they get the most money legally possible.
Thought of a similar concept a few months back. When it comes to not getting sued, as long as they're not providing content, then the tip is simply a donation. If the users use the tip as moral justification to then steal the music ("hey, the artist got more than he would have if I bought it, and screw the labels!"), then the onus is on the user.
As for getting the money to them, that's the question I want answered. I had conceived it as pledges rather than donations. I think people are more likely to pledge than they are to donate, which would get the service started a lot faster (and not problematic as long as you provide cc/banking/bitcoin details so that pledges are automatically deducted). Artists could then be contacted and told to claim their pledged donations.
This is what we're aiming for - since there is no content being bought, it's really just a donation.
In terms of getting the money to the artists, this is definitely an important and difficult part - but we're going to start slowly, do things that don't scale and work it out from there. Out of interest, how do you see pledges and donations as different from a user's perspective?
I typed out an email and thought I'd just leave it here as it answers your question:
Hi, I was thinking about something like this after reading Jaron Lanier's Who Owns the Future (which I recommend simply for his view on how a capitalist economy could subsist on micropayments, if you haven't read it).
The world needs something like this, if only because the concept of post-payment, if successful, would align expenditure and value to a degree that is impossible if you've paid for a good before you can consume it. If this got big, it would change the quality of music that is produced as musicians would strive to make music that lasts. It requires a very moral user base, but I think you can find one.
I saw in another comment that you might use analytics as a future premium feature. If you think of the donor's psychology, tipping an artist comes from a desire to benefit the person who has provided them with an enjoyable experience, but also as an indication that of all the artist's material, that song/album/video is the direction that the band should continue to go in. If a donor thinks he can influence a band's decisions, then I am convinced that he would be likely to give more (remember, we're dealing with a fairly well-educated morally inclined user base. Not all people think this way, but they do). If analytics is locked behind a paywall, then donors might not feel the same incentive to give. This is obviously problematic, since you seem to be leaning freemium rather than charging fees as a source of revenue, and need to think of good premium features that the free user base won't miss.
If you truly view this as tipping, as a means to correct the fact that musicians receive far too little of their music's sales, then the payment model makes sens. If users start to use your website as a moral justification to steal music (as I certainly would) then you're effectively cutting into the labels' revenue. Though I applaud that initially, if this starts to gain scale, I would consider allowing users to give the labels a small percentage of their donation, as the labels do play an important role in producing, marketing… though not as big a role as their current compensation would suggest. I doubt that labels would ever accept these donations, as it would be an admission to the inadequacy of today's music distribution model, but you would gain a reputation of being a fair player rather than a pirate.
Though it sounds like this is already the case, I would highlight to your users that what they are giving is a pledge: it's not guaranteed that artists will agree to accept these donations. The pledging mentality, like with kickstarter and co, makes people give more as expected expenditure = pledge x probability of acceptance. An economically inclined user might give $15 instead of $10 if he only thinks that there's a 2/3 chance of that
Finally, you should allow for users to supply and request content associated with artists, tracks, albums… Hey, I'm looking for guitar tabs for this song and am willing to pay x for it. First person pays the fee, other downloaders can tip the guy who made the tabs if they choose. Or, I'll make tabs for this song for $20, people can leave little tips, and once it hits $20, it gets sent over to them and is available to the rest of the community. If there's too much content being generated, use a reputation system to only show the best and keep the UI clean.
I may be thinking a little too niche because I play guitar, but this could extend into all sorts of other spaces like merchandise, though competing with ebay/amazon on that front probably isn't where you want to go with this. If you did get into selling physical goods, you could keep it pretty indie by only allowing user created content (a poster a user drew). Because you would be creating a market that doesn't really exist, you would be more justified in charging small fees for user to user interactions than f...
The problem is usually not the service. Services don't charge that much of a fee. Spotify, CDs, iTunes... They're pretty good. What really makes a difference is how big of a slice the record labels take off the rest of revenue. For Spotify and co. it's basically everything. "It's a new technology. Let's use it to screw over our signed artists!"
45 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 91.2 ms ] threadI disagree with this - Bitcoiners have been quite generous with tipping in the past, and it's been picking up again thanks to the ability to tip millionths of a bitcoin (informally called "bits") using ChangeTip.
We also have to look at a future where an artist like Justin Bieber could put up a BTC address on his Twitter profile. Taking a cut means the artist has a small reason to not want to sign up ("they take 1%-2%. I'm better off just sticking a BTC address on my Facebook").
In this future of which you speak, are there any off-world colonies?
If it's the latter, your claim of being able to tip "any artist in the world" seems a bit disingenuous. If it's the former, do you just pocket the donations if the artist refuses to sign up?
One problem is that many people don't have bitcoin even if it is the best way to pay. Many people are uncomfortable buying bitcoins.
Amazon micropayment service lets you pay with credit card transaction anywhere from $0.05 to $9.99 with a 5% + .05 cent transaction fee. Which isn't as good as bitcoin but it is still pretty good as far as credit card fees go.
https://payments.amazon.com/help/Amazon-Flexible-Payments-Se...
Many small micro-payments can really add up. This can be huge for content creators. I would really like to give tips to people who create educational science videos, open source software, open source hardware, write detailed tutorials for hardware and software projects, take the time to help me on forums, etc. Many content creators on the internet have helped me. I might not want to give a lot to each but I can give a small tip. Which can still make a difference to the creator if many people also do the same.
I think if they charged a fee for the tip it would be a more standard business model and people would not find it as exciting. It seems more direct to customer this way without the man in the middle dilemma for content creators. Also charging a fee in addition to the transaction fee would make it increasingly difficult to tip the creator a small amount. I think the fact they don't charge a fee on top of the transaction fee is out of necessity.
We plan to launch with only Bitcoins, and shortly thereafter add on credit card payments to go more mainstream.
Our mission is to enable anyone to tip any creator anywhere in the world - so educational content and others are definitely included in this! Music is just the starting point.
Here's an article on the plans to further reduce the fee.
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-transaction-fees-slashed-ten...
2. Dogecoin is a must - shouldn't be too hard if you have Bitcoin already. The communities are very different.
3. Services like Tinkercoin allow you to buy a small amount of Bitcoin with credit card. Consider adding this info for the fans to get a small amount of Bitcoins.
4. There are some musicians in the space who are big into Bitcoin, like Tatiana Moroz. You can contact them to promote your site in the music and Bitcoin communities.
Good luck!
1 - We're definitely focusing on transparency around tip statuses.
2 - Yes, agreed!
3 - Good idea!
4 - Great, thanks!
The best you could do is purchase music from the musician though the least-fee-laden service available, so they get the most money legally possible.
It would be just as useful for authors and movie studios.
As for getting the money to them, that's the question I want answered. I had conceived it as pledges rather than donations. I think people are more likely to pledge than they are to donate, which would get the service started a lot faster (and not problematic as long as you provide cc/banking/bitcoin details so that pledges are automatically deducted). Artists could then be contacted and told to claim their pledged donations.
In terms of getting the money to the artists, this is definitely an important and difficult part - but we're going to start slowly, do things that don't scale and work it out from there. Out of interest, how do you see pledges and donations as different from a user's perspective?
Thanks for the feedback!
Hi, I was thinking about something like this after reading Jaron Lanier's Who Owns the Future (which I recommend simply for his view on how a capitalist economy could subsist on micropayments, if you haven't read it).
The world needs something like this, if only because the concept of post-payment, if successful, would align expenditure and value to a degree that is impossible if you've paid for a good before you can consume it. If this got big, it would change the quality of music that is produced as musicians would strive to make music that lasts. It requires a very moral user base, but I think you can find one.
I saw in another comment that you might use analytics as a future premium feature. If you think of the donor's psychology, tipping an artist comes from a desire to benefit the person who has provided them with an enjoyable experience, but also as an indication that of all the artist's material, that song/album/video is the direction that the band should continue to go in. If a donor thinks he can influence a band's decisions, then I am convinced that he would be likely to give more (remember, we're dealing with a fairly well-educated morally inclined user base. Not all people think this way, but they do). If analytics is locked behind a paywall, then donors might not feel the same incentive to give. This is obviously problematic, since you seem to be leaning freemium rather than charging fees as a source of revenue, and need to think of good premium features that the free user base won't miss.
If you truly view this as tipping, as a means to correct the fact that musicians receive far too little of their music's sales, then the payment model makes sens. If users start to use your website as a moral justification to steal music (as I certainly would) then you're effectively cutting into the labels' revenue. Though I applaud that initially, if this starts to gain scale, I would consider allowing users to give the labels a small percentage of their donation, as the labels do play an important role in producing, marketing… though not as big a role as their current compensation would suggest. I doubt that labels would ever accept these donations, as it would be an admission to the inadequacy of today's music distribution model, but you would gain a reputation of being a fair player rather than a pirate.
Though it sounds like this is already the case, I would highlight to your users that what they are giving is a pledge: it's not guaranteed that artists will agree to accept these donations. The pledging mentality, like with kickstarter and co, makes people give more as expected expenditure = pledge x probability of acceptance. An economically inclined user might give $15 instead of $10 if he only thinks that there's a 2/3 chance of that
Finally, you should allow for users to supply and request content associated with artists, tracks, albums… Hey, I'm looking for guitar tabs for this song and am willing to pay x for it. First person pays the fee, other downloaders can tip the guy who made the tabs if they choose. Or, I'll make tabs for this song for $20, people can leave little tips, and once it hits $20, it gets sent over to them and is available to the rest of the community. If there's too much content being generated, use a reputation system to only show the best and keep the UI clean.
I may be thinking a little too niche because I play guitar, but this could extend into all sorts of other spaces like merchandise, though competing with ebay/amazon on that front probably isn't where you want to go with this. If you did get into selling physical goods, you could keep it pretty indie by only allowing user created content (a poster a user drew). Because you would be creating a market that doesn't really exist, you would be more justified in charging small fees for user to user interactions than f...