How Web 2.0 Robs Content Creators of Genuine Reward

Problems With Commercial Imperatives on Web 2.0

Although Web 2.0 empowers content creators with mediums through which they can create and share content, Web 2.0 does this at a significant cost to the user. Ultimately this comes down to how traditional Web 2.0 content platforms monetise their sites. 

The way traditional blogging platforms work is like this: Readers and writers are the ones who contribute content and provide their engagement. Despite this, the host platform captures the majority of the value created by the user base through advertisement revenue, subscription models and selling user data to advertisers. 

While some platforms may reward writers by paying them to write on their platforms, this is not uniform across all writers because writers must reach a certain threshold of posts, likes and subscribers in order to be eligible for payment. This means that a large portion of creators who may be contributing original content go unrewarded, making it difficult for new users to penetrate the market and start blogging to earn. 

And even if some writers are paid money for their content, the amount they are paid is an absolute pittance in relative terms to the monetary reward their content provides to the hosting platform. 

Another fundamental problem with traditional blogging platforms is this: They only reward people on one half of the equation. While platforms do pay some writers for the content they produce, they leave the reader completely out of the reward pool. This is a fundamental problem. After all, without the reader, there is no writer. 

It can definitely be said that readers are a form of content creator. They make comments on posts, share content and react. The engagement they provide is the currency that keeps content flowing and writers rewarded. 

Despite this, traditional blogging platforms only seem to abuse their readers by charging subscriptions for premium content. Even for non-subscription based platforms, readers are still subject to having their user data exploited for advertising revenue. 

Clearly, traditional blogging platforms have their model the wrong way around. Readers should not be the ones who are charged to read content unless they are provided with a reward commensurate with their efforts. Now, some might say the reader is rewarded by gaining new knowledge and insights from the content they read. While true, we find this unsatisfactory. Why shouldn’t readers be rewarded the same way as writers when they are equally important in the content-creation process? 

In sum, traditional platforms seem to extract significant value out of their users without rewarding them properly. It is understandable that Web 2.0 needs to monetise in some way in order to stay financially viable; nothing can ever be truly ‘free’ in the sense that people can engage on a platform without having to provide something of value. However, ‘value’ does not have to be synonymous with monetising users in a way that rewards the platform at a significant cost to readers and writers. 

How BULB is Different

At BULB, our ‘do-to-earn’ model provides an antidote to the traditional Web 2.0 ways of blogging. Through notions such as ‘write-to-earn’ and ‘read-to-earn’, we give 100% of the reward back to the creator, both writers and readers alike. We reward the outstanding effort writers put into their content through offering BULB tokens as a reward, and more importantly, we also reward readers when they react, comment and share posts. In sum, we reward our users commensurate to the effort they put in.  

How, then, do we see monetisation? Our view of monetisation is consistent with the ethos of Web 3.0. We do not believe in extracting data and information from our users to sell to advertising agencies. We also don’t believe in subscription-based systems where readers need to pay a subscription fee to read content on our platform. We believe that readers and writers are the ones that should be earning 100% of the reward, not us. 

In doing so, we lower the barriers of entry for our users and create an environment where ideas, passion and engagement are truly rewarded without strings attached. 

As for monetisation, crypto tokens are the best way to monetise the platform. Consistent with the ethos of Web 3.0, all members of the community benefit from the value of BULB tokens regardless of whether they are shareholders; a stakeholder is all you need to be to benefit from the growth and value of the community. Ultimately the token’s value depends on how many use cases exist and the contributions the community makes to the platform. 

Putting it all together, we do not believe in monetising users, rather, we believe in monetising tokens of which all stakeholders including users and developers alike own and contribute.