The business model leaves out the role of the consumer and inherent consumer perks. It talks about creating products (several instances of content), paying for those products with or without an audience. That money goes out the door or stays in the wallet, until it goes out the door.
It tells creators to pay in order to get paid back. Voting power is limited supply, the discount is decreased to the point of being nonexistent when VIMM upvotes become smaller across the spread as more premium members pay up. Both 50% and 100% can equal pennies in return, but that only happens when this model becomes as successful as it possibly can, removing perks in the process and making it less appealing.
A creator paying HBD in order to receive rewards is just money going in circles, or the creator brings new money in. Creators: Small group. Consumers: Large group.
It tells creators to pay a cut in order to receive a cut. In order to recoup system wide losses that appear to be personal gains, the streamer must attract actual paying supporters. People actually interested in their work. Those people exist, but not locally with accounts and HP. They're still outside and need to be called in.
Example: I have ten votes worth $1 each. I can't watch ten streams in a day. I am only one consumer exposed to ads. If I'm streaming, there's a strong chance I'm unavailable and don't have time to watch streams, support creators, or be exposed to ads. Would most likely spread my voting power across those watching the stream (if possible(make it possible in stream chat/comment section/whatever if not currently possible)), encouraging more to show up consistently. Giveaways are a common occurrence in streaming so its nothing unusual, as I strengthen my own support base for the future. This works well in practice, I know from experience, and I think it would boost interest in watching streams, plus be an incentive for creators to hold.
Several with smaller votes and no desire to create. Hopefully they are included in your onboarding attempts since they are more important than anyone else when it comes to "long-term active users for Hive." Without them, streamers will stick to Twitch. The only way to move the audience here is to give them a better deal.
So I'm seeing a lot of money going out the door to pay for all this, but no money coming in the door until consumers realize they no longer need to throw their money away and can support streamers (as they do elsewhere to the tune of hundreds of millions, annually), by placing that money directly into their own wallets, and then "tipping" with upvotes, however small or large, since it all adds up, and pays all parties involved. Now you're going from self-sufficiency into profit territory. You've also created a massive community of HP holders able to support something like this DHF proposal, and majority just came for the show.
VIMM, you have a good chance of pulling that off. Streamers need to know support for their content on Hive exists outside of the bubble as well. The content is in high demand and the people outside Hive have grown accustomed to supporting it with their own money. I'm not against anything here. My main concern is paying for another app that only caters to people wanting to post into the void with the hopes of receiving easy rewards rather than an audience. Without people actually interested in the content and supporting it, even your revenue sharing won't amount to much. Lack of local support is not a sign people aren't interested in this.
As promised:
You’ve highlighted some important issues, particularly regarding consumer engagement potentially being insufficient to sustain long-term growth. The subscription model was primarily designed to cover server fees, which had been our biggest challenge in the past. However, expecting those who pay for the subscription to cover all VIMM's streamers isn’t entirely fair. It might be smarter to consider placing our streaming service behind a subscription model, while allowing free users to access other streaming platforms. An additional benefit of this approach would be discouraging DMCA violations since it wouldn't be worth it for someone to pay for a few minutes of streaming, like the Champions League final, before getting banned (which has been a problem in the past).
Coupling voting weight with the subscription model is indeed problematic and shouldn't have been included in the proposal. You can hold me accountable for that. In early feedback from others, like @shmoogleosukami, it was mentioned that this could be perceived as vote buying. You’ve also raised another valid concern—that it creates the wrong incentive for streaming. Voting should be tied to the quality of content, which, in the context of streaming, can be subjective. However, metrics like viewer numbers and chat activity could be a good starting point for evaluation.
When it comes to creating more tangible value for money, something like a season pass with a reward track would be far more suitable. We could experiment with parameters like beneficiary percentages and offer more (partner) rewards to unlock, among other things. Gamifying the "grind" encourages people to stream more and is better suited to returning value to the streamer, thanks to the secondary income we generate through things like beneficiary rewards and partner revenue.
(*) I have another gamification idea that I’m considering for https://dagamers.xyz, which could be fun. If it proves successful and the proposal goes through, it might eventually be implemented on VIMM (I’m keeping this as a teaser for now since I don’t want to make any false promises before assessing its feasibility).
We'll definitely discuss this in our next call and I see us going back to the drawing board.
Our perception of Twitch and other streaming platforms has completely shifted. Rather than viewing them as threats, we now see them as opportunities. The most effective way to onboard streamers from these platforms to VIMM and Hive is by allowing them to continue using their preferred platforms while gradually introducing them to the benefits of Hive.
I explored this idea in a theoretical article I wrote on DaGamers two weeks ago: https://peakd.com/hivedev/@foreveraverage/if-dagamers-went-full-hive-and-tried-to-onboard-new-gamers-and-streamers-into-hive. The article is somewhat simplified and should be taken with a grain of salt, as it was more of a "reflection of the moment"—especially the section on reaching out to new streamers, since VIMM will have more resources. However, it is a good starting point.
(*) When it comes to engaging viewers and those with smaller votes, it might be wise to look at other apps within the Hive ecosystem for inspiration. A common approach is to distribute custom tokens, which is certainly a possibility for us. However, we don’t want to create tokens just for the sake of it—there needs to be a clear utility or "sink" for them. Potential sinks could include jumping ahead in the reward track or applying discounts to the season pass. This approach could also incentivize viewers to watch streams, as they could earn tokens in the process. Additionally, it would give people a reason to use VIMM's front-end over other platforms.
(*) That said, we need to think this through very carefully. Another option that might be more beneficial for us is to keep this "currency" exclusive to our platform. By doing so, users would need to spend their tokens on VIMM-specific features, which would encourage them to stay within our ecosystem and focus on what the currency unlocks rather than what it's worth.
(*) Additionally, we could consider creating something like streaming teams, groups, clans, or guilds that viewers can join. This would foster a sense of community and introduce an element of competitiveness, further enhancing the user experience.
Everything marked with (*) is more theoretical and will most likely not make it into the proposal, as the proposal is set for one year—and a year passes quickly. However, these are concepts we're considering and would love to discuss further, even if their potential implementation is not set in stone.
Thank you for taking the time to not only read through the proposal but also for providing such a thorough response @nonameslefttouse, doing so takes some time and I really appreciate you doing so. You’ve raised some very valid concerns, and I'll provide you with a bit more detailed response later. But I'm already leaving it here so you know a reply is pending
We intentionally set the proposal period to over a month so we have the opportunity to make adjustments based on well-grounded feedback like yours. In the meantime, I’m "bumping" this discussion because this is exactly the kind of feedback we're looking for
Just know I see all the other layers to this as well, and I say that based on what I see here of course. It's not bad. If you got more to add I'll be glad to read it. Giving it more than a month to cure was also a very wise move.
That's ok, I'm a big fan of constructive criticism so there's no need to justify yourself
Forgot to mention, I did put my vote behind the proposal. Good luck VIMM.
You made a lot of points that helped validate my own approach to this problem, I'd love your feedback on my post at the top of my blog from last night on this very topic. Please and thank you!
When I have a moment I'll take a look.
Thank you!
Haha we were just talking about this the other day. I said taking streamers and here we are. You made a lot of great points in this and the other comments!
I remember. Funny how that works. And I guess we'll see how it goes. People want a streaming service regardless. Hopefully things work out. Plenty of potential.
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