Web 2.0 is evolving. This is not something that is of great benefit and is revealing how it is vital for Web 3.0 to come forth.
At the core of all of this is how revenue is generated. For a couple decades, the most basic form of revenue creation was through advertising. Sites tried to attract a lot of traffic which then would see advertising monies increase.
Source
This model is evidently not working as planned. Of late, many site are taking to the paywall approach. Here we see how some information is provided for free yet most is hidden. To access it, payment is required. We are seeing this with news, financial information, and even sports.
The problem with this is that we are making information only available to those who can afford it. Here we see something that goes counter to what can benefit society.
Failed Financial Model
Obviously the money generated from advertising is not sufficient for most sites. This makes sense since we know the likes of Facebook and Google tend to be the big winners there. They consume the majority of all advertising dollars. This leaves little left for everyone else.
There is little doubt that content has value. When mainstream sites are paying people to generate articles, it makes sense that they monetize them. After all, most of those entities exist to make a profit. Failure to do so will result in negative outcomes such as layoffs or even closure.
Unfortunately, this is a situation that transpired over the last couple decades. It seems like each evolution is no closer to solving the problem.
There was a time when the information purveyors were able to monetize what they had. Back in the days when people bought newspapers, as an example, the entities were able to pay people to write while turning a profit. Consumers paid for subscriptions to get their favorite publications. To them, it was worth getting the content.
Of course, there were few options back then. Before the Internet, information was difficult to come by. This changed when the new medium started to become popular. The Internet demonetized information since it suddenly was widely available.
This became a problem for those who had a business model of turning a profit off the information provided. As mentioned, advertising was one way that alleviated the situation. However, we see them trying to add more by putting most things behind a paywall.
It is getting to the point where it is very difficult to get information. What is out there is basically "teasers" to get people to sign up for the subscription service. In the effort to monetize, we are seeing, once again, a limit to the information the masses have access to.
We can see how the corporations are pushing for regression.
Web 3.0 Changes Everything
We often talk about how blockchain makes content immutable. That is true. There is also the fact that accounts are owned by the individual and cannot be shut down. Both of these are major shifts in how things presently operate.
However, there is something else that does not get discussed nearly as much yet is possibly more important than those two.
With Web 3.0, the payment mechanism completely changes. Therefore, how people are compensated for their word is radically different than we see today. This model ensures that information is free for people to consume. In other words, it democratizes what is being produced.
The essence of paywalls is that one takes money from his or her pocket and gives it to the entity that is offering the information. From a transactional standpoint, the consumer ends up with less money while the producer more. Certainly, you could make the case that one is receiving equal compensation in return via the information provided.
We also see the model where people offer up money to the content provider. There is no payment required but people choose to support their favorite creators. This is a bit more democratic since the information is available to all. It does, however, still have the same transactional component.
This changes with the mechanisms being implemented by Web 3.0.
Hive Has The Answer
While many have attacked the Proof-of-Brain model, it does bring a solution to the table that is much different than the trend towards paywalls.
On Hive, all information is free to consume. There is nothing blockchain anyone from viewing what is on the blockchain. Anything posted is open and immutable. This is a major step forward for consumers.
At the same time, the model for creators was altered. People are not paid for their content by the consumers. Instead, they participate in the reward pool based upon the upvotes received from the community.
Each consumer opts to contribute to the financial benefit of each creator via the upvotes he or she has. This helps to direct the payouts from the blockchain.
The key is that the consumer still has the same amount in his or her wallet. We see a shift in how the transactions take place. Instead of going from the pocket of consumer to creator (or site), it is new currency that is given to the former.
In other words, the consumer gets the content for free while the creator is still rewarded. It is a win-win situation.
Also, on Hive, there is no entity that is taking someone's work. With traditional publications, one's content is submitted and becomes the property of that site. Payment is doled out in whatever form was agreed to. However, the platform is getting a cut.
With Hive, we see this eliminated. Anyone is free to publish on any front end that is appropriate. In many instances, there are additional tokens paid out on the same content, enhancing the rewards authors receive.
As we see more content being locked up behind paywalls, the need for open, accessible information is becoming even greater. This is where Web 3.0 and Hive can step in. We see a model that completely changes the existing financial system regarding content.
It also ensures that anyone can read it.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.
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I have a feeling most of these organizations generally prefer to make money off their content forever. So I wonder if they will follow a HIVE model or a model more similar to Publish0x/read.cash. Where most of your payment comes from the first few days but occasionally, you do get some from old articles.
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Paywalls do not attract younger generation, most sites that throw this up front will eventually lose exception Facebook or Google where monopoly is held, time will arrive when it will hit the bottom line.
How many here escape a page when confronted with either this or email collection detail? Information will be found for free if you find the right way of sourcing it.
Blockchain technology is finding ways around this in presenting a completely new way of presenting and working with original content.
Nice topic something to think about, I agree the old technology is over.
That is true they will encounter a generational divide.
The long time information purveyors were in decline anyway. They simply are not adapting to newer models that work.
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Many have not adapted, good to keep up with technology, always learning!
Have yourself a great day.
I think a bigger factor in the increase of paywalls is that more and more people are blocking ads. Twitter, Facebook, etc, are sucking up a lot of ad dollars, true, but places like the New York Times could easily attract the same ads. It's no coincidence that as adblocker usage increased, so did paywalls.
That could be true. Either way, it is certainly making their site less appealing. As was noted above, they are going to encounter some generational issues.
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Couldn't agree more with everything you said. Paywalls were introduced as a solution but you are actually forced to do one of two things - pay 10 different subscriptions and spend at least a hundred bucks a month for "diverse information" or stick with one outlet and in turn put all of your trust into them... It never made sense and it never will.
I still don't understand the inner workings of Hive completely but couldn't WSJ just create a frontend for them and their readers using the Hive infrastructure as the basis? They could even introduce their own token. I'm guessing that was the original idea behind Hive and Steemit, right?
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Ultimately what you describe is what is being worked upon. That is the idea behind what the SpkNetwork is doing. They are looking to provide the infrastructure so things can be spun up easily.
We will see what it all looks like when they start to unveil some things.
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You surely don't believe that the newspapers would be earning most of their revenue from people paying 60¢ for each paper? Most money comes from the ads. People pay for cable television, and the draw was that there would be trade from advertisements to the subscriber paying for the content. But you still have ads in cable television. We see this has changed with Netfix, with no apparent advertisements at all. I expect that we will see a blending of ads, donations and paywalls.
Witnesses, those with a large stake in Hive can run front-ends, full-nodes and witness servers and they do it without ads, and without charging. Witnesses do win votes, however.
I expect ads will eventually come to Netflix. There is just too much money in it for them to refuse, especially as streaming competition increases.
Ads on community driven front ends will benefit the token holders as well as, likely in the future, the viewer of the ads.
At some point, entities are going to have to pay the people to view ads.
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we missed the opportunity to become something like medium but on a blockchain, we tried for years but someone can figure how to solve what is holding people back and build a dapp focused on news
For years a lot of time was spent waiting on Ned and his hair.
Now we will have to see what comes from the SpkNetwork team as they are trying to put the infrastructure in place that will allow for things to be developed easily.
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loved the Ned hair joke :)))
Exactly! And to top this up - When you are reading an article on one of these websites/magazines, you don't exactly know if the author is "the right person" to write about the topic know unless you do deep research about him. And here is where Hive power and reputation etc. will also improve the reading experience/knowledge absorption process for readers.
Yes you can learn something about the author from those two areas although that might also be misleading.
But you can read the author's other works to see if he or she has a clue about the topic. You can also read the comments to see what others say.
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Exceptional article. Always make great articles. Web 3.0 is a kind of revolution, because it embraces the financial world. It is likely that some young people find it totally useless to open a bank account, and he exclusively uses the web to store his money. Web 3.0 is disruptive
A lot of what we discuss on Hive is truly disruptive. A lot is going to change, in a quick period of time. Things are happening very fast with technology in general. This is going to radically alter how we live.
The next 10 years will be a time of great transition.
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you are right, I believe that some people will not be able to enter this transaction anyway due to a relatively greater complexity compared to "old" systems
And still, even on Hive the paid content via the subscription model can become a thing. But the norm so far has been total openness and availability of content. Of course, that in turn generates more/bigger upvotes and interaction for Hive's well known authors.
Certainly there can be a layer where paid content is offered. That would be up to the applications/communities.
However, there will still be plenty of free content that is open to anyone to not only read, but also provide.
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I didn't read your full post and I'm sorry for that
The concept of paying for the consumption of someone's work is not something new.
In the past before the internet we bought newspapers and what not. Then we were given news for free. From what I can remember when advertising money substituted subscription of news the rise of sensationalist reporting also rose.
I think the rise of fake news and all the BS pieces are a direct result of the advertising monies because how else do you drive traffic into "free" news media sites.
I also think that with the rise in subscription would lead to the start of the end for sensationalist news proliferating or daily lives.
A portion of censorship is a result of the dependence on advertising. Some advertisers don't want to support controversial content, so the publisher has to limit what can be posted.
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I agree 100%. Paywalls on news sites and such cause me to immediately close the page and never look back. With a platform where all news is free and we can even tip the author with uupvotes is a much better system.
Pretty damn cool!
Ever notice that rumor and conjecture are free but journalism is behind a paywall? It's a problem for sure.
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@taskmaster4450 Everything you say is true, Hive has a lot of potential and better features than most existing blockchains. Still it is necessary to add more value to the Hive blockchain by giving it more uses and applications that will make it grow.
In my opinion there are two key points that need to be addressed:
There is a need to go back to having a project like what Utopian was, a platform that encourages users to develop new Dapps by availing the support of communities and individuals with skills.
It is necessary to create a crowdfunding project like Fundition to connect blockchain with real life and thus transform everyday life by helping people to solve problems using Hive as a platform for this.
The massive adoption and use of Hive can only happen if we create value together and if we transform daily reality with resources generated in the Blockchain.
I love the change that 3.0 is bringing
!BBH
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Glad to see how everyone is rising up and speaking up and want a different web like the web 3. I know how much Instagram frustrated my business account even if I followed all their rules. With the web 3 and the decentralized web the power won’t be on centralized hands no more .
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. Keep up the fantastic work
Happy to be a part of making Web 3.0 a reality!
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