81–90 of 104 posts
Somebody really needs to make a startup where, when you visit a page, you can either view ads, or opt out by paying a really teeny tiny amount of money. (And where you can set it to "always opt out and just pay for my damned content.") Problem? You can't really charge people tiny fractions of a cent effectively. Solution? Bit... wait for it... coin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They said they won't fund life expenses. That's a bit different. Though it is a somewhat fuzzy distinction to be making.
So KS wouldn't applicable to Dwarf Fortress?
[1] example only
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the FAQ: Advertising paid for rent, wages, health insurance, utilities, all the normal stuff that you pay for when you have fourteen souls working together. That money keeps the lights on while we do the things people expect from us: thrice weekly content drops, two annual shows, the scholarships, Child's Play, etc.
At the risk of sounding like Scrooge: I would assume most people think of Penny Arcade as the thrice weekly "content drops" (while viewing the rest as peripheral) and it certainly doesn't take 14 people to draw a comic. Asking the community for $1 million every single year to draw a comic seems a bit steep. I'm not saying it's not worth it. I probably will contribute, but it feels like a lot of for a small thing.
Here's the important part though, they're already paying it, and more. That's how advertising works. People buy stuff that's advertised and they pay a higher markup which goes to pay for the advertising which goes to pay for the content.
The only difference is that today it's very indirect. What's wrong with direct support?
People often ask what there could be instead of copyright, and patronage is one of the options.
Besides targeted donations like this, you could have a general fund (restricted geographically, or worldwide), and pay a portion of it out based on viewership.
Anyone who donated anything at all to the fund gets to go to the performance/movie/play/circus, etc. They count how many viewers they had, then they get a proportional amount.
In exchange they don't claim copyright, only moral rights.
To encourage donations people above certain funding levels get extras, like backstage visits, lunches, public thanks, etc.
Looks like the arts patronage is back. People often ask what there could be instead of copyright, and patronage is one of the options. Besides targeted donations like this, you could have a general fund (restricted geographically, or worldwide), and pay a portion of it out based on viewership. Anyone who donated anything at all to the fund gets to go to the performance/movie/play/circus, etc. They count how many view…
I enjoy Penny Arcade. That said, it seems like an awful lot of money for an ad-free website. Aren't they making enough off of merchandise, their expo, their games, etc., to make the site ad free? From what I understand they are wildly successful (monetarily as well as publicly) so why do they need the public to literally give them money?
My initial reaction was that $1 million seemed low to replace their advertising revenue for a year. I don't know the site statistics, but they have a large staff, and are a very popular site. Gaming/entertainment is a solid area of advertising. Looking at their site though, they don't have a ton of ads, so I guess that helps explains it. And their primary source of revenue seems non-ads (expo, etc...), and probably s…
Looks like the arts patronage is back. People often ask what there could be instead of copyright, and patronage is one of the options. Besides targeted donations like this, you could have a general fund (restricted geographically, or worldwide), and pay a portion of it out based on viewership. Anyone who donated anything at all to the fund gets to go to the performance/movie/play/circus, etc. They count how many view…
So under the pay-proportional-to-viewship model, artist A runs an intimate orchestral music performance and 10 people donate $100 each (because hey, orchestras are expensive to run); and artist B runs a punk performance in a warehouse where 1000 people pay £1 each. Under your model, the punk performers would make $1980 and the classical performers would make $20 - right?
First, people can give directed donations if they like.
There would be multiple funds, so presumably the funds would differentiate based on genre. And people would sign up for the funds that have the type of entertainment and art (or even lectures) they prefer.
Everything here is completely voluntary. The funds would act as agents, and advertisers.
A fund would attract a performer based on how good a job the fund does on getting that performer an audience. A performer would attract a fund based on how happy people are with the performer. People would sign up with a fund based on the quality of the performers.
So if a performer is not happy with his cut of the donations they would find a different fund. If a fund is not happy with how many people are donating they would try to find better performers. And if the donors are not happy with the types of shows they would find a different fund.
So the incentives are all aligned properly. (As long as people are actually willing to donate.)
It would probably require some fine tuning to get it right. In particular there is a strong network effect, and positive feedback (the larger you are the larger you get), so this will have to be toned down somehow.
This is sort of like a subscription model, but for live events. This could of course be done while maintaining copyright, but the whole idea is to find an alternative to that.