Thread by @AudiusProject

Thread: The Audius Monetization Plan 👇

1. How we plan to put more money & financial tools into artists hands

2. How Audius will sustain & grow itself

3. And why one fan on Audius will be more valuable than one fan on another platform

The Payout:

- Our current math has 90% of streaming revenue flowing straight from listener to uploader.

- The other 10% will flow to people operating nodes helping host Audius content (more on this later).

- By design, Audius takes 0% so more money stays in the pie for artists

For comparison, Spotify is estimated to have only ~40% of the pie left when they get to calculating your payout.

That payout is then diluted by the biggest, major label backed pop stars in the world.

Even Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" 100M plays reportedly earned them only $9,669.

Audius is also the only music streaming platform built on a new technology paradigm - Ethereum - which has unprecedented built-in financial tools.

This enables entirely new possibilities - ex. skipping a predatory label deal & crowdfunding your advance from fans w zero fees.

Or being the only platform that rewards curators for their contributions.

ex. Curators could earn revenue on a track listen if the track was discovered through the curator’s repost or playlist.

"So how does Audius make money?"

For starters, Audius is not structured from the traditional Wall St. profit-maximizing paradigm.

Audius is mission-oriented.

To create this radical new system that is self-sustaining, self-governing, & serves the community 100x better.

Our early investors & employees are incentivized w tokens for their contributions.

These tokens will be accessible to those who want to operate a node & help host Audius.

Like a license to operate a business where they get 10% of streaming revenues they helped facilitate.

Together, all these parts combine to create the necessary economics for Audius to become a self-proliferating network free of control from any one entity.

This means more freedom of expression => fewer starving artists => larger middle class of fully independent creators

That's the business model innovation here & where the sustainability & growth comes from.

Instead of compromising alignment with participants, it actually aligns incentives into its very structure.

"Don't be evil" vs. "Can't be evil"

We also believe if Audius is adopted widely, it will not be difficult to find new revenue, if the community votes in favor of this.

Ex. vinyl printer creates service allowing fans to order vinyls of playlists -> % of that sale could go to fund team(s) developing Audius

We're still in early-stages of development inventing something new here, so this plan is subject to refinement.

More details & timetable to come in not-too-distant-future.

That said, questions & comments welcome~

💡 Key takeaways 💡

1. Because of the 90/10 model, one fan on Audius will be substantially more valuable than one fan on another platform.

2. Best time to build up your Audius audience is *now* while it's still early & not fully saturated.