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While their corporate structure is shadowy, their revenue distribution between creators is not. The source for this is in this video [0][1] by TLDR Business. Essentially, all the money collected by subscriptions is paid to creators based on the number of views on their videos. [0] https://nebula.tv/videos/tldrbusiness-how-does-tldr-really-m... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clfti6Do9lc
How to create a similar site for my local community?
I think the last few paragraphs go off the rails. If creators didn't own (at least in some way) some controlling stake in Nebula, why would they publicly say that they do? Moreover, why would creators join Nebula if the terms were not beneficial to them in the first place? I find it funny that the author writes > It’s equally possible, however, that the system was set up in order to keep any meaningful power away fro…
The author’s thesis is that the creators are being tricked. They own some complex bespoke right in Nebula (“an entirely new kind of cooperative corporate governance”), which they’re told and believe is equivalent to ownership, but actually it’s a sham that will break down if Standard ever wants to do something that isn’t in the creators’ interests.
The author says: "Unfortunately, without access to one of their contracts, we can’t know for sure what power the broader group of creators actually has."
While the accusation of the creators being tricked might be between the lines[1], I think the more direct accusation is the subscribers being tricked.
The subscribers are made to believe:
1. the creators get 50% of Nebula's profit
2. their money goes into a co-op of creators
3. Nebula hasn't taken VC money
My reading is that the author claims, that only the first point is true.
[1] To the best of my knowledge, none of them has come forward with any accusations. On the other hand, we probably only should expect this to happen once Nebula gets in trouble or is actually sold.
For the record, Nebula is primarily owned and operated by creators. Those creators are:
* Dave Wiskus
* Brian McManus (Real Engineering)
* Alex (LowSpecGamer)
* Devin Stone (Legal Eagle)
* Thomas Frank
* Sam Denby (Wendover Productions)
The other creators are getting scammed.
This is not an uncommon model. This is almost identical to how edX was structured and the marketing literature is nearly identical too. It was owned and run by universities. Just not the universities who made up the "consortium."
If there were no scam, there would absolutely no reason for the non-public non-answers. If Nebula weren't scamming, they would disclose the "financial and legal wizardry."
None of this prevented me from giving Nebula money. As I said, this kind of issues comes up literally every time I do due diligence. I am disappointed in specifically Brian McManus for being involved in a scam, but this kind of scam is omnipresent with quite literally every organization I've done due diligence on, and usually much worse.
To my untrained eye, this just seems like owning stock without voting privileges, which seems okay? Is the fear that the voters will eventually just change the creator profit sharing to zero and milk the company dry rather than selling it?
> Shadow Equity (sometimes called Phantom Stock) isn’t real stock. It’s basically just an IOU that’s worth the same dollar value as the actual stock. The creators will get paid 50% of the proceeds in the event the company sells, but legally they don’t actually own any of the company. To my untrained eye, this just seems like owning stock without voting privileges, which seems okay? Is the fear that the voters will ev…
Shadow Equity usually doesn't pay dividends. So if the stock devalues due to payed out dividends (and the shadow stock has no voting power), it's the creators paying out the investors from their share.