Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Great thread on a subject that's near and dear to my heart as a reader + writer who favors deep dives and loves Farcaster. It's worth clicking through to read all the comments. Regarding sustainable incentive structures and business models for deep-dive creative writing: this is a really tough problem that pre-dates blockchain tech. I'd love to be free to cast deep-dives here much more frequently, out of the sheer love of it. I don't need rewards as a *motivator*. BUT: that takes a lot of time and effort. Like most creators, I have to *buy* the time to do that work. How do we solve *that* problem? After years on Patreon and Substack, I'm confident that for the vast majority of creators, the answer is not "subscriptions" or "crowdfunding." At least not in their current incarnations. All that said, I think FC is the right place to experiment.
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Justin Voorhees
@0xstranger.eth
you could try crowdfunding per deep dive? https://nft.withfabric.xyz/
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Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
It's great that this "per-works" option is available. For some use cases, it would surely be an improvement on time-based subscriptions. But there are some structural factors I'd need to think through carefully. (I mentioned a couple of them briefly in this cast). https://warpcast.com/danicaswanson/0xe41fc3d4
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Justin Voorhees
@0xstranger.eth
if there are enough folks looking, a campaign per deep dive with a binary (y/n) result may work? re: link - is the move then to publish deep dives for free, and monetize on an alternative axis?
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Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
These are tough problems! Glad you're thinking about them. I think business models that rely primarily or exclusively on revenues from fans voluntarily supporting an individual writer (or even groups of writers) through subscriptions or crowdfunding campaigns are unlikely to be sustainable long-term. Most of those who make it work are receiving some sort of subsidy elsewhere, but that reality is often concealed. One limiting factor is human labor. For most writers, I'm not convinced that the long-term returns will ever be sufficient to justify taking on the side-hustle labor (e.g., design, marketing, audience-building, and admin support for the crowdfund or subscription as a thing in itself) on top of creative work. Some do pull it off, but at what cost? So should we publish deep dives "free" and monetize elsewhere? That's an open question I think about often, especially with the proliferation of AI. Here's an article I'm thinking about a lot lately: https://www.combinationsmag.com/post-cognitive-income/
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