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crsbailey · 3 years

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So, I'm a lurker at heart, and running my own creative business is an exercise in performing extroversion. But I did want to share what tools I use and have used (in no particular order), so folks understand what I mean when I reference them. And so you can try them out if they'll be useful to you!

Patreon - website that allows you to distribute exclusive content directly to your specific fan base. Cost to use: exact cost varies, depending on your creator plan. A percentage of your subscriber profits, with additional flat or %age fees depending on how you pay out (so payout via paypal actually costs considerably more than direct deposit, something I didn't know when I joined)

Ko-fi - website, allows folks to "tip" you (fee-free) a bit at a time and/or you can sell goods (I think they lean heavily to digital goods but I can't be positive there's no physical stuff) and they take a percentage of the sale price in exchange for hosting

4thewords - web app that gamefies writing. Love this site, y'all. Made it possible to write 60k words in a bit over a month. Made me believe supporting myself as a writer was possible. 4thewords is a subscription service with variable costs depending on commitment. About $4/month at its cheapest last I checked. Sometimes gives codes for free/discounted sub time. If you're interested hit me up, I have a friend code we can use to get us both cool stuff.

Scrivener - the holy grail of writer programs, tbh. A bit pricey for those starting out ($49 for desktop Windows or Mac, about $20 for iPad/iOS) but it's a one-time fee and honestly you get so much for that fee it's well worth it. I've used the 30-day free trial version in various NaNos but plan to buy outright with my first month's patreon profits.

Wordpress - I'm building my site through wp and though it won't likely have a whole lot more content than this blog, it's how I will manage signups for my email newsletter. Using the free version of wordpress which means (among other limitations) the URL for my site will have "wordpress" in it, but that's not a significant drawback at this point.

Mailchimp - free email distribution/list management under a certain number of subscribers (2000 maybe?) And paid above that number, which I will happily do when it becomes necessary.

Canva - another website, enables you to easily and quickly create decent graphics, either based on their templates or your own designs. Let me know if you want a referral code; the base program is free but has paid add-ons/services like special graphics, printing, etc.

Irs.gov - you might laugh, but the US tax system is a nightmare and running a small business is like steering a space ship when you've only ever launched bottle rockets. The IRS website has a lot of resources for new/developing small businesses. Your state's site might have even more. I'm not saying the sites are user friendly or easy to navigate but if you know how to google you'll likely find what you need.

#writer resources #small business resources #queer author

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renorasims · 5 years

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Sooo you've arrived at the post where I'm lining up some of the alternatives you can use instead of adfly! Missed my first post? It's HERE! Let's get to it shall we? =) before we continue I'd like to express my gratitude to a group of people who helped me out in lots of ways! <333 English is not my first language so their help has been highly appreciated!

Patreon.

In my opinion the best method to monetize CC if you want to be sure you get something in return for your time and effort! Patreon has become a widely accepted way in the community to donate money towards some of their fav creators. As a creator, it does not cost you a dime in advance! Their fees will be extracted from the donations you received. I am very pleased with what you get on their site! You can go all out; upload HD images, video's, create goals you can reach with you patron's, etc. The interface is easy to use and the best part is (to me) that you don't have to spend any time worrying about collecting payments, etc. It's all taken care of. You have to find a workflow, balance that works best for you and your followers. Some creators release their cc after patreon every week, 2 weeks, and some once per month. This is completely up to you. I personally try to release stuff not later than 2 weeks after Patreon. This is what works best for my personally.

NOTE: Patreon Exclusive CC tends to get re-uploaded by other people since it's locked behind a paywall then. It's also against EA tou but hey... it's all up to you! Best way to avoid all this (In my opinion!) is to be transparent about when you will release your work and don't go exclusive.

PayPal / Ko-Fi.

a completely different way of trying to get something back for your time and effort since it's an optional donation. I used (still use) PayPal a lot in the past / present and it's a very safe way of getting something back. Ko-Fi is very similar and friends tell me lots of positive things about it.I use both of them a lot to donate to creators I love! I really hope I can expand my donating ways to Patreon as well! I know that it is a non-committal way of monetizing CC which can make it less attractive for some creators to use but the donations I got from when I started with it (when I was a smaller simblr) till this day far exceed the $0,02485 dollars you get per click (highest payout rate, USA) on Adfly.

I personally do not donate to a creator that uses adfly-only links. My mindset behind that is; you're apparently satisfied with the funds you raise with Adfly. I'm not going to support you on that. What I mean with this sentence is; creating goodwill towards your followers is sooo much more valuable! It has definitely paid off for me, from when I was a smaller simblr, till now.

Adsense.

Last but most definitely not least! Adsense can have 2 scenario's depending on your tech levels I will explain both of them;

You're unable to code your own website (me too!). I mean, I know html a little but I'm far from able to create my own website! If you're like me, you most likely have to purchase a package at one of these companies; Wix, Wordpress. There could be more options out there but i'm only talking these about 2 since I have experience with those. You need to purchase a paid package to be able to run Adsense on your website, the free packages do not allow you to do that. The fees are very different between Wix and Wordpress! I believe that Wordpress is cheaper(!) than Wix. I've been at Wix from the beginning and moving a website out of their company is made really hard for customers (to prevent them from leaving of course) + I would loose my URL. That being said; Wix has a drag and drop html editor that lets you customize your site endlessly. Wordpress however provides better care for wordpress sites via plugins etc. Pro's and con's you have to decide whats best for you!

NOTE: Blogger is also an option. I have no personal experience with it unfortunately but loooong ago I looked into it and i thought it also has a free option + running Adsense? This is speculation at best! I'm not sure about this! Though it's worth mentioning it. Google is your friend in this case =) Add-on infoby Jennie, thank you! <3 Adsense for Blogger is free, but you need to fit the criterias set by Google to be able to use it (Blogger is owned by Google).

You're a solid coder that can code your own website. I've looked into this in the past and to me it seems that you only have to purchase a domain in that case. With Adobe Dreamweaver or other coding softwares for websites you then create your own website and include the main code for Adsense. Along with the codes for the ads itself (where you want them, which size, which sort of ads, etc)

From this point it's the same for both scenarios! To be eligible for the program your site needs to be around for a few months and have generated some traffic (visitors)! I don't know the exact numbers Adsense expect to see before letting you into their program. I also read on their forums back then it depends on more factors than just pageviews. It depends on what kind of website you have, what kind of content it hosts, etc. But when I started I had maybe 2000 followers on Tumblr? So its definitely not 100,000 pageviews in a month or something like that. Sucks that I installed my Analytics account only a year ago otherwise I could look up what my monthly traffic was back in the days. Bottom line of Adsense; In the long term this will generate income even if you're not releasing stuff everyday. Which is why I am so fond of Adsense. You need to put in so time and effort + money in my case but it has paid me back every penny I put into it! some months I generate 50 bucks and sometimes more or less. It depends on your own activity and factors you can't always control. For example; I just saw (in Analytics) that my Chablis Coat Product Page has spiked yesterday. This can be due to; Tumblr picking up on my Chablis Coat post or someone on youtube doing a CC haul video. These are estimated guesses tho! In 99% of the cases I have no clue why something gets flooded with visitors.

Some perks of NOT using Adfly / Short.e / Shorteners

Create sustainable bond with you followers for the long term.

Increase chances of people donating / supporting your work.

Increase your download count.

Increase site visitation levels & possible Adsense revenues.

Indirectly; increase you're followers count.

which leads to; more people who will likely support you / donate.

this upwards cycle does not have an end to it if you make the right choices! points 2. till 7. can repeat itself endlessly.

Meaning; every positive change you make affects the next step in this cycle. Same as it works for a downwards spiral I guess. One thing for sure; Adfly users won't experience the perks above to its full extend than users that don't use it. Adfly stagnates blog growth in general.

Sorry for the long post but I really hope I was able to give you guys some insights on other alternatives for Adfly / Short.e / Shorteners in general. Most importantly; it's all up to you! Do as you see fit. All I wanted to say with these 2 posts is, try to be mindful to your followers when you make a decision. Only they made it possible for you to monetize your CC in the first place!

#ts4 #s4 #ts4cc #s4cc #alternatives for adfly #no adfly #adfly

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hollisartsblog · 4 years

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I've volunteered for non-profits doing a lot of things including recruitment & advertising. Sometimes you just have to approach it from a different angle. Or sometimes what you feel is normal has odd aspects to other people. I don't like "per creation" patreon tiers but that's just me; I'd rather a flat rate each month. Likewise, I don't buy physical zines (space issues plus shipping/ printing) adds to a lot of cost. It's always hard going from making free content/ spaces to trying to get paid.

you are totally right! I'm waiting for my payout this month so I can change my patreon settings. also I won't make my zine very expensive since I know not everyone can afford it, and as I've already said, the problem aren't the money, but your suggestions helped me a lot!!

#myasks

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genderpunktheo · 4 years

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this might be too personal so i completely understand if you don’t want to answer this fully or not answer at all, but i’ve recently been watching videos on ppl’s budgets etc but a lot of them are female american influencers and while it’s interesting and useful to see how they do, i don’t understand how $3000 is an averaged monthly budget. only if you’re comfortable sharing i was wondering what your monthly budget or monthly spending is like as a british student and someone out of that sphere?

Sure, I don’t mind sharing!

So, as a student my tuition fees are covered by a government loan, I won’t bother including that cause it goes direct from the government to my uni and I never get to even see it.

I also receive a maintenance loan from the government three times a year - each one is supposed to cover about three months (the last three months are over the summer, we don’t get one for that since we’re not at uni).

My last payment for this was £1312 which sounds like it would be a lot but that basically covers my rent for the term - in fact, the last term it didn’t even do that, I paid my landlord £1400 which was October, November, December rent so I had to sort out the remainder from my own money. That includes water, electricity etc. (unless we overuse it but we never have so far). Rent is so low because I live in a student house with three other people.

These maintenance loans are means-tested based on how much your family earns - I get the lowest possible amount because the assumption is that my family earns enough to send me money to make up for it. However, because of various reasons (too private to share), my family aren’t able to do that so I just make do with what I’ve got (at least it pays my rent!! I’m very grateful for that).

In order to pay rent over the summer, I always aim to save £400 for July over the course of the year and then I pay £400 for August and £400 for September by having a summer job.

Last year I worked for half of July which paid me £556 at the end of August. I then worked full-time hours for the whole of August and got paid £1330 at the end of September for that.

Once summer rent was paid that then left me with £686, a large chunk of which went on my new camera for YouTube and the remainder I used to help pay for mine and my boyfriend’s anniversary trip to London. The camera was technically for work I suppose but still, I felt incredibly privileged to be in a position where I was able to do that - for the two years before, I would never have been able to make a purchase like that so it was pretty awesome!

So that rather long (sorry) explanation tells you how I sort out rent. As for everything else:

Most students I know pay for rent out of their loans and then pay for anything else with one of three things:

They have a really high loan amount and can live entirely off of that

Their families send them money

Or (the most common) they have to get a part-time job while at uni

So I’m I guess sort of in the part-time job crowd? But I’m unusual in that rather than working retail or something, I do create content and fund myself as best I can through that.

I make about £30 a month from Patreon which I am incredibly incredibly grateful for. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how many new and deleted pledges happen that month.

I also get money from sales of X MARKS THE SPOT which again, varies a great deal. Usually, it’s £70 to £120 a month.

I do some freelance work here and there. The type I’ve been doing up until now was on sites like UpWork where you write something for a client on the site - usually CVs and things like that, or content for very small websites. I’m starting to get to the point now where I feel more confident pitching to more reputable sites and making a proper go of it but I haven’t got far with that yet. Freelance is the most variable thing I do. In good months I might get £200, in the worst months, I get nothing.

If you’re wondering whether I get money from YouTube - the answer is no, lmao. I did recently get monetised but so far that has yielded between £3 and £9 a month. You need a total of £80 to get a payout, so I still very much make videos just because I care about it!

So all of those things together amount to between £100 and £350 a month, after rent payments. Not very much at all - I could definitely have more if I got a more traditional part-time job but I choose to make do with less money because otherwise I wouldn’t have time to make this content and I do feel that what I do is important.

Because the amount is so varied, I make a big effort to save money during good months so that I don’t run into trouble during the bad months. Sometimes this still falls through and that’s when you’ll see me ask for some help on here - like when some lovely people sorted out for me to get a new binder (thank you!)

What I’m very good at is budgeting food. In my first year of uni I could manage £10-£15 a week during the months when I made the least (I had even less then). Now I live with my boyfriend so we haven’t had to worry so much until he lost his job last month. We spend between £25-£50 a week on food for the two of us depending on how well we’re doing and if we’ve run out of longer-lasting things.

I have a couple of extra bills per month £10 for Spotify, £4 for a NYT subscription and one I just started - £12 for a stock media site.

Anything else either goes into savings, pays for new clothes, snacks, occasionally going out with friends or other miscellaneous things.

I hope this is helpful/interesting! Sorry for rambling so much haha.

#budget #finances

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drferox · 5 years

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Pet Insurance

To be honest, I'm not totally convinced with this whole 'Pet Insurance' thing.

It certainly exists, and it's becoming increasingly common, but it's not exactly a good product and it's getting harder to recommend to my pet owning clients, as well as a general pain in the patootie to get money of sometimes. I have to say, I'm becoming increasingly disappointed and disillusioned with it.

I got curious the other day and looked up what it would cost me to get Accident & Illness cover for Trash Bag. No preventative care (it's cheap enough for me anyway as I can do a lot myself), just for sicknesses and illnesses. He's a 2yo neutered male, indoor only cat. He's a really low risk cat, and that's a quote without pouring through his medical history or pre-existing conditions. Even though any issues he'd had before taking out insurance would have been automatically excluded.

And it's still about $600 for the year, with only reimbursing 75% of the bills back, with no excess. What that means in real terms is that I'd have to have a $1200 vet bill in order for me to break even with pet insurance.

That would be plausible, with the median sort of 'expensive' vet bill for a stay at a 24 hour clinic or major surgery being around $3k, but the odds of that actually happening for me are extremely unlikely at his age.

Now, it might be a good deal, if I could expect to have that rate for his entire life. But that isn't going to happen.

Pet Insurance in Australia will guarantee 'lifetime cover' but what that means is not that you're paying this rate for the animal's entire life, but that they will give you a new offer of cover every year and it's up to you to accept it. They can't stop covering my cat, but they can make it more expensive every year so maybe I'll stop covering my cat. If they don't want to cover me, they will make me an offer they hope I will refuse.

Let's say I have a lot of small claims. The insurer might amend their letter of offer to include a $100 excess. That means I have to pay the first $100 of any vet bill on my own, and now they reimburse me 75% of the rest. So for a $100 vet bill, I can't claim anything. For a $200 vet bill, I get $75 back, and I'm still paying at least $600 a year at this point. Now I need a $1500 vet bill to break even.

They may also limit the amount payable for certain types of things. For example, a lot of the Australian policies have a $300 annual limit on consultation fees. In practice that translates to about 5 consults with a general practice vet, or two with a specialist. That's not a whole lot if you've got a pet with something chronic.

Tick paralysis and cruciate ligament injury have annual limits to their payouts too, and they're not quite what these things would really cost to treat.

And to add to the deception, some insurers will exclude bilateral conditions. If your pet had a sore eye one year, they may exclude all eye conditions going forward, even if they're not related, and even for the unaffected eye. Sometimes they will exclude unrelated conditions for the same organ system. Demodex as a puppy? Wont cover skin allergies now.

Pet insurance works like a bet. You're betting that your pet will get sick, and the insurer is betting that it wont. If you win, you get paid out.

But if the insurer doesn't like those odds, they change them, or they change the rules for the payout. They're not going to lose, they're going to change the rules to make sure of it, and you either agree to their terms or you stop playing.

So how do they make you stop playing?

The insurer is entitled to increase the cost of the pet insurance policy each year, based on the age of the pet and previous claims. Or they can increase the excess you pay for each claim. Or they can exclude covering conditions that you've claimed for in the past.

Progressively, it gets more and more expensive to cover your pet for less and less, and this is something veterinarians are progressively less happy about.

Now, if we were talking about a car and not a cat, you could take your quote and shop around for a better deal. But the catch with pet insurance is that if you switch providers, then suddenly everything you've ever claimed for, or that appeared in the medical history, now counts as a pre-existing condition and wont be covered. You lose coverage by switching providers, and probably don't save all that much.

Oh, there is, to my current knowledge, only two insurance underwriters for pet insurance in Australia right now. So of the 200 or so brands out there, 199 are actually all written by the same mob. Because that's not ripe for corruption at all...

Every 12 months, the insurer can review and change your premiums, excess, excluded conditions and rebate rate.

And unlike human health insurance where you scan a card, the total comes off your bill, and you pay the rest, with pet insurance you're still paying the vet clinic everything up front, and then get money back after your claim is processed, which may be a few months.

Pet insurance companies are really trying not to pay out, they want to make money, not give it away.

This makes writing medical histories a little bit tricky, because it's not vets reviewing the history to decide what they will and wont pay out on. If the insurance employee doesn't know what pemphigus folleaceous is, they might decide not to pay out. Then I have to call them up, request a review, talk it through, or send more documentation to explain what's going on.

Pet Insurance requests, demands, access to the pet's medical history. It's not like human insurance where they just see an itemized invoice. And this makes vets not entirely happy about handing over medical histories all the time when client's money is at stake. Especially when any potential mention of a vaccine preventable illness gets the whole claim thrown out, even if it's in the differentials list and not the final diagnosis.

So pet insurance is nice to have if you end up with a single, large vet bill, but it's not so helpful for chronic conditions, and you still need access to that cash BEFORE you get any back.

So, honestly, it just wouldn't work for me, and I'm a vet.

The point I would like to get to, other than Pet Insurance in general needing to be better regulated and honestly a bit of a gamble, is that is can't be used as a solution to everyone's problem, especially after a pet is already sick. You still need cash to pay the bills up front, even with pet insurance.

There are other options besides pet insurance. I can never recommend against it, but I do recommend people understand what they're signing up for, and as long as they've got some sort of plan in place for paying vet bills that's okay.

Popular in my area is just using a mortgage redraw facility. With these home loans you can pay extra into your mortgage each week/fortnight/month and it counts against the interest you pay, as a method to pay it down early. But because it's being paid 'early' you can withdraw the extra funds again if you need them, such as for a vet bill. It functions like a savings account, but you're paying down a debt you already have instead of accruing interest.

An emergency credit card is another option, one you just keep paid off unless you genuinely need it.

And 3rd party payment plans exist. Most vet clinics will not do their own payment plans, or will not admit to ever offering them, because we simply don't want people to rely on the vet clinic, a small business, taking on the financial risk on behalf of the owners because, frankly, most people never pay. This is especially true if the pet dies. A clinic might offer them for immediate life saving treatment if they know the client well, but the emergency last resort should never be anybody's number one plan. That's not fair.

Wonka also does not have pet insurance. I asked a couple of insurers at an industry exhibit once whether, because he has a neurological condition, whether he'd be covered for a broken leg if he fell off the couch. And none of them could assure me they would, in case in fell off because of the neurological condition. And that was not reassuring.

So when do I recommend pet insurance? Well I kind of don’t, specifically. I advise which companies other clients have been happy with, and what sort of things a pet owner needs to look for in terms of exclusions, limits, and fine print.

There are always some breeds I do recommend it for, because they are disasters waiting to happen, and for many young animals when the insurance is still cheap, nothing is pre-existing and we don’t yet know if they have a congenital condition, at least for that first 12-18 months of life. There are some you can look at as puppies and be highly suspicious this animal is going to be a money sink.

I see a lot of internet comments saying “should have had pet insurance!” or “go get pet insurance!” on various posts about affording pets or vet bills or emergencies, but pet insurance doesn’t help at all in these scenarios. Pet insurance gives you money back, you had to already have had money in the first place to take advantage of it. Pet insurance is no panacea or cure-all.

I just have a savings account. Putting aside what you would have paid in pet insurance anyway is a decent estimate for how much you’d need to save for a normal pet.

This post was accessed early by my Patreon Supporters.

#veterinarian #vetblr #pet insurance #money

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bedlamgames · 5 years

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Q&A #93

Next update is very close to being done, so time to get back on the answering questions horse. Plan is to also do these as twitlongers for those that no longer want to deal with tumblr.

Anonymous said: The good news is that for explicit content posted in the past, tumblr seems to be willing to let it stay (if my reading of their announcement is correct) -- you may be able to keep this blog as an archive, but wherever you choose to move I'd gladly follow. (I'm already pledged for a dollar on Patreon so that shouldn't be a problem.)

Actually, belay my last message, creating your own website might not be a bad idea. I know that SilverBardGames has their own website and that's like my other indie game developer (with explicit content) that I follow. Word of mouth might still work to spread the good word.

That’s the plan. I do definitely need to sort out a website though sometime. If this experience has shown me anything it’s that relying on a single resource is a baaaad idea.

justanothorguy1 said: Where are you going to post you new download links for you games?

Will still post them here, the patreon, TFGames, and the Collective. Will also post them going forward on the twitter.

rafaelivri said: 1. Somehow my slaver that I recruit started with cum lust+++. Is this even intentional (that they can have it from the very beginning)? 2. Any way to get rid of it?

Worked out what was causing that and it should be fixed in the update.

Anonymous said: I'm not sure if this a bug but recently I've been getting a lot of slaves and slavers whose descriptions say that they're barely taller than a goblin.

Maybe a weird run of RNG? Not heard that from anyone else yet so one to keep an eye on I think.

Anonymous said: was wondering if theres a walkthough for no haven somewhere? i played a bunch of it and interested to figure out what i missed

There is a wiki which you can find a link to on the No Haven page here. Not something under my control though so no idea if there’s a walkthrough out there.

Anonymous said: watch as your posts get flagged anyway tho *shrug*

Been over a month and no flagged posts so worked out how to handle that apparently :D

Anonymous said: I don't think your link in the latest blogpost is supposed to lead to some tony mo and his videogame loveletters on patreon.

Oops missed a character in the copy/paste. Thanks for the spot.

Anonymous said: i had a idea for a no heaven maybe some content where your bed warmer slave takes control of you in bed if there dominate and your secretly submissive. and if the there a dominator or hypono they start taking more control of your over time secretly controlling you and camp form behind close door.

That’s been on the books for awhile where certain slaves will be very dangerous to have as a bedwarmer. For a start those mantras coming in the next update just might end up being used on you in future updates.

joyfullyunadulteratedruins said: Is the Hypnopics thread gone? That's the only way I can download No Haven now, and the download link here is still on version 0.821

Looks to be still there to me?

Anonymous said: [no haven 0.832] imgur a/d4SJMAC is it intentional that a fel person doesn't want to get corrupted?

[no haven 0.832] imgur /a/J0ooMqC the love being desecrated drone until entirely embedded sounds to me like the check doesn't have to be done anymore, but I keep having to do it.

Yeah for some reason they may not always think that you have their best interests at heart :)

That other one is a temporary bodge of their thoughts to overwhelm their resistance. In future though there will be more permanent alterations possible like with slaves in the next update.

Anonymous said: Could we, in the future, have a fourth-wall option to discard a slave or slaver? No reward given, just a simple deletion. It's happened to me a few times where assignments that involve specific slaves - such as the lamia in Dance the Night Away or the drow males in the Deep Mtns quest - bug out at the turn in and leave behind a slave you cannot get rid of. Also been numerous times where I've gotten an abysmal roll on a slaver and had to wait for a guaranteed disaster quest to get rid of them.

Previous anon here who was asking for the fourth-wall purge. Yes, I am aware that there's a quest to remove unwanted slavers. However, since you can't reliably force it to pop, its usefulness is inconsistent at best. Also, it gives a payout and only works on slavers - the purge I'm asking for would be more universal and give nothing. Just a convenient deletion to improve gameplay. The accompanying picture could be a screaming stickman being sucked into a black hole.

I’d prefer to fix bugs rather than do workarounds if possible. Been down that path before and it only complicate things badly.

The reason why there’s no outright dismiss a slaver is that from the beginning on of the challenges I wanted was some of your own slavers so just booting them would lose a lot of fun possibilities.

Saying that I do want to do more with morale/reputation so that slavers have a chance to get fed up enough that you can drive them away. I’m also planning a new assignment which will be a risk free depending on choices way to dump unwanted slaves without need for chancing the Whore Makers.

Anonymous said: Hi! Thank you for for that great game! Some questions about the future: 1) Will we have any mechanics with C:Devices and C:Enchantment in the near future? 2) Any plans to expand the list of slave trainings with anal/vaginal tranings or something else?

Thank you!

Maybe not near, near future, but certainly sooner rather than later as both I want to have as encampment roles. Next update also has some of the groundwork for enchanting.

Yes absolutely more training is coming including bimbo training in the next update.

nh-maikochan said: Bug report: Had a slaver level up and had the option for the aspect "Friends in High Places", however, when I clicked on -View Choices-, it instead gave me the entry for "A Friend in Every Port", however the text for that made reference to Scouting the Deep Mountains instead of the Dreadsea Coast. "Aspect: A Friend in Every Port - Requires Friendly and two Scout the Deep Mountains Success or Crits, awards an additional two assignments on Scout the Deep Mountains Success or Crit results."

So just had an interesting bug. I took a slave to auction, my camp leader going along on the assignment, got a critical result, and while the assignment said that the slave was sold, she ended up coming back with me. Some factors that may have had an effect: Had gotten word that bimbo slaves were in demand, and the slave was indeed a bimbo and my leader has Inquisitor, which activated giving me an assignment.

First one I’ve sorted for the update.

Other was that slave bimboborn? Cause I think that might be causing issues with selling.

Anonymous said: Hi! What do you think about oppotunity not only gain new perks when slaver lvl up, but to remove existing ones, such as Unruly or Reserved for example? Thank you!

My current plan is to use hypnotic to tackle those unwanted mental traits. Certainly not a bad idea though.

Decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pull in questions from other sources to give as much info as possible out in one place at one time. So going forward I’m also going to be including some of the questions asked elsewhere along with including the answers I made.

From TFGames: I'm a little confused as to biomancy and hypnotism and changing other characters. The odds seem to really not like being "in the field" but I can't figure out where else to be? Also, I can't seem to figure out what hypnotic triggers actually do when you put them on a slaver. Is there a way to alter someone's personality via hypnotism or domination? In terms of customization and exporting... is it just the char-gen where you can export a character? Is there a way to say, see a slave get captured, manipulate or change them via training and influence, turn them into a slaver and then export that character and see what happens on their career? Alternatively, is there a way to change the names of the slaves you capture and slavers you recruit? For say, immersion purposes >.> Or generate and specify your own "number two" ?

Hypnotic triggers on slavers currently are used for respect checks which are when a slaver doesn't want to do something like go whore themselves out, where a slutty outfit, or be corrupted and you need to persuade them. Using the triggers is a lot more effective than some of the other options. In the next update triggers will also be used on slaves to help with their training and unlock new bonuses. In future those slave mantras will be able to be used on anyone including yourself, and I'm also planning extra usage to deal with annoying traits like reserved and unhinged. Currently it's just the main character. I'd like to do more, but given I also want to move away from rags I'm not planning to do anything with it for now. There is an option to nickname under help and options. I don't think it's ideal though in the current implementation and it needs another look sometime.

From TFGames: Is there any get mind controlled content besides the "dreams" ascociated with Lacey's toy?

Being possessed is the main one which is a rare outcome from corruption which then has a bunch of follow up text at end of day, during respect checks, and leadership challenges. The Quick as You Like mini-adventure if you go on it assignment has MC content, especially if you 'win' the race. There's the hidden cults when you go into town where you can lose control. There also might be some assignments that have a bit of MC action if you go on them. If you're submissive there's also mind control content in the story line assignment to unlock the hidden area and slave auctions.

From the Patreon: A suggestion to add more interplay with your slavers in NH - in the "Talk" menu add a topic called "ask for rumours" where you can ask your slavers if they have any leads/tips. Depending on certain factors they could offer you a tip-off for a mission (type & quality determined by slavers type and your relation with them), to be added to your list, in exchange for gold/supplies/days off/sexual favours. Could also lead into leadership challenges if you rely too much on a slaver. Slavers could also have an x% chance of approaching you for a chat each day and ask you for things and you could choose what to charge them (no charge leads to a relation increase, refusing outright leads to a decrease). Would be a way of getting slavers to wear things/do things that they otherwise wouldn't and vice-versa. Looking forward to the update.

That's a really neat idea. Added it to my to do list.

#Q&A

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simfileshare · 7 years

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This is a suggestion. Please could you consider putting something in place where there could be a preview picture and information about the file. Could there also be a way for creators to benefit from posting their files like allowing them to take a cut of ad revenue from their posts? This last suggestion is just a way I feel to organise a community and allow people to feel confident putting all their stuff here and sort of have a seamless way of downloading files here

Thankyou for the suggestion!

There are two separate suggestions here, so I’m gonna give two separate answers, under the cut because they are very long!

The one about creators taking a cut: I would love, love love to do this, but it’s sadly not practical. Last month, the site made approximately $0.0003 US per download. So for a single creator’s files to make $1 in ad revenue, they’d have to have over 3000 downloads in a month. That’s a lot! There are creators who regularly leave that kind of number in the dust, but the majority don’t get anywhere near it.

And that’s just to make $1. Obviously, SFS would have to keep some of that money to pay for servers etc., so let’s be arbitrary and say it’s split 50/50 between the site and the creator. That means that to make $1, a creator has to get about 7000 downloads in a month.

But then... I can’t afford to send payments of a dollar on a regular basis. It’d get eaten up by bank and payment processor charges. I haven’t looked in detail into exactly what the lowest fees I could access are, so I’ll be generous and say that I’d have to have a minimum payout of $10. It might well be more than that, most companies I’ve used have a minimum of about $50 and I don’t know how much of that is financial necessity and how much is greed. But let’s stick with $10 for our hypothetical scenario.

So for a creator to get paid $10 every month, they’d have to have 70,000 downloads per month. We can’t all be Trapping, Karen!

Now, I personally had 80 downloads in April. In fairness, I’m not the most prolific creator, but when I do get round to posting something it tends to be fairly popular. Shall I call myself average? Loaded question. But it means that if I was a creator getting ad cuts from SFS in this scenario, I’d get paid once every 875 months. If you’re wondering, that’s 72.9 years. I love y’all, but I’m probably not gonna still be running SFS when I’m 99.

If I was more organised and had more time, my SFS download count might equal my MTS download count (I have an archive of stuff on MTS that I made when I was at school and could spend my weekends modding, instead of separating meat from the supermarket into individual portion-sized freezer bags), which was 4300 in April. I would get paid $10 in SFS revenue every 16 months. It’d be a very small payout for the vast majority of creators, and it’d mean a lot of extra work for me for really a tiny return.

Now, some of you are probably thinking: but adf.ly is a thing! How does that work? Can’t you do that?

The answer is, adf.ly works because noisy, obtrusive ads, which spawn reams of popups and popunders, which try to convince you that your computer is infected or you’ve won a million euros, and which try to give you malware if you click on them and sometimes even if you don’t, pay the big bucks. (It also works because if you have less than 1000 pageviews a month they don’t pay you, they keep the money earned from your links and pay it to other people with more views.)

On the other hand, tidy, unobtrusive banner ads that don’t autoplay sounds, don’t create popups, and are safe to click on aren’t very valuable to advertisers. And they are the only adverts I will ever put on a website I own. That means much less money, but a much better experience for users! (And I do want to highlight - the ads on SFS are safe to click on! You might not be interested in what they’re selling but if you do click on them, deliberately or accidentally, you won’t get malware or anything nasty)

I think if the sims community was to ever have a platform which could pay creators for their CC, it’d have to use one of two models. The first is the TSR model, where a chunk of the platform’s overall ad revenue is paid out to a small group of creators who are supposed to keep the platform popular by consistently churning out good quality content. I don’t like this because I don’t want to say that only a hand-picked group of creators should get paid, and everyone else should get nothing: if I can’t pay everyone I’d rather pay no-one.

The second possible model is the Patreon model, where downloaders pay a small amount monthly to their favourite creator(s). I would want to see this done in a way which doesn’t restrict access to CC to only paying patrons: patrons could maybe get early access, get extra little things like artwork etc., or get convenience features like the “Donators download the whole set in one file” button that Around The Sims has. Of course, not everyone agrees with me here, and there would be a lot of heated discussion involved if anyone were to set something like this up. Thankfully it would have to be a separate website from SFS imo, so I don’t have to try to find a consensus on this in our lovely community. ;)

The suggestion about images and descriptions: you’re not the first to suggest this! It’s a somewhat complex one. I will definitely consider allowing a text description, because I think that’d be useful, especially when someone shares a load of files in a public folder without much ceremony.

Preview images are more complex ‘cause there are a lot of issues to consider. I couldn’t afford to have people hotlinking images, so I’d have to put in place measures to prevent that. I’d also have to look into the policies on adult content that the various companies I use have: we simmers do love to put our pixel people into compromising positions, and that’s a-okay by me, but images of those compromising positions could cause very serious problems re. SFS remaining online and I’d have to be very careful not to jeopardise the site as a whole with this. In the past I’ve not been entirely convinced as to the usefulness of this but, yeah, I can see it - again, though, user-submitted content changes a lot of things and it’d require some careful thought. So consider this answer a “hmm”, at least in terms of images. :)

#feature requests #long post #ts2 #ts3 #ts4 #ts1 #Anonymous

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cryptnus-blog · 6 years

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Give Way to Young Talents! How Game Stars' Platform Will Solve The Problem of 'Fresh Blood' Deficiency in eSports (Interview)

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/05/give-way-to-young-talents-how-game-stars-platform-will-solve-the-problem-of-fresh-blood-deficiency-in-esports-interview/

Give Way to Young Talents! How Game Stars' Platform Will Solve The Problem of 'Fresh Blood' Deficiency in eSports (Interview)

Bitcoinist.net · May 31, 2018 · 5:30 am

eSports industry is developing quite fast. Tournaments on principle disciplines gather more and more viewers every year. Young players appear on the stage and become real stars in the shortest possible time. Many cyber sportsmen attend multiple tournaments and become real superstars in no time.

Several countries have gone even further and allocated an official status for eSports, equating cyber athletes with traditional sportsmen in terms of issuing visas and simplified control. Still, the industry has many problems that are unsolved. The relationships don’t have a clear structure between tournaments participants: gamers, organizers, sponsors. As a result, gamers often don’t get their payments from tournament organizers.

eSports are in need of a comprehensive solution that will make the industry transparent, allow cyber athletes to raise funding for professional development, and let investors earn on achievements of beginner and professional cyber sportsmen. Multifunctional platform Game Stars is a new ambitious project that tends to provide eSports market players with such opportunities.

Bitcoinist recently sat down with Game Stars’ CEO, Sergey Sevidov about the revolutionary solutions that he and his team are bringing to the eSports market.

Bitcoinist: Sergey, how did the idea of Game Stars appear?

SS: eSports competitions are first of all shows with their own organizers, sponsors, and audience. Like any other kind of show, eSports events at the proper level of the organization often pay off quite well. On the other hand, if organizers went wrong in counting and exceeded the budget limits as a result, it will strike at the entire industry. And I’ll explain why.

eSports has a real problem with the organization and prize money payouts. We are not talking about salaries, but about the prize fund – money that is supposed to be locked in a safe and wait for the winner. For the past few years, the industry was shocked by great scandals when players have been waiting for the payment for months, sometimes even for years.

The simplest example: main media resources have published news in April that Vega Squadron member-players in Dota 2 haven’t received $75.000 yet for their win in China Top 2017 Shenzhen tournament that was held in November 2017. Six months! Can you imagine?

Over the past few years, many teams were in the same situation. In 2016 WePlay did not pay the winners of their KPI Cup. Nvidia Cup ESL, the organization of GameShow and Binary Dragons, and many others can be on the list. What kind of eSports development, I mean amateur, semi-pro and pro-level, can we talk when teams from the major league do not always get their winnings?

It is the main motivation for most of the players, even in Tier-1 teams salaries are not always great. These things have happened for years: it happens less often now, but at the very beginning payments delays or their absence was the norm. The smaller the tournament and the name of the team, the more often they are cheated by organizers.

The idea of our platform is based on two features: we want everything to be fair and small teams and beginner cyber sportsmen to have a chance to express themselves and earn for living from the very beginning of their career. It means that sponsors need to receive their advertising, organizers – the salary for their work, and players – their money for the prize-winning place even if itis a local tournament for $100.

Blockchain is an inviolability and certainty that eSports industry currently lacks.

Bitcoinist: Why did you choose blockchain technology for your platform?

SS: Obviously, the thing is that the blockchain is inviolable and a smart contract can’t be deceived. Many beginner cyber athletes have only a verbal arrangement, not actual contracts. As a result, they can become a fraud victim of organizers and their own managers who decided that couple months on the beaches in Thailand for themselves is more preferable than winnings for players. It means lack of responsibility from team owners side and almost impossible conditions of transferring to another team. Blockchain technology allows to make all operations transparent and logical: transactions are made in tokens, the platform issues smart contracts which reliability has been already proved.

Bitcoinist: If I am a newbie in eSports, what can you offer?

SS: As I’ve mentioned before, the biggest problem of a cyber sportsman is lack of guarantees that tournaments conditions will be observed and the payment will be made completely. The platform solves this issue with the help of smart contracts. Another problem is the financial side. Only insignificant number of all players currently receive constant income from games. The rest have to combine eSports with work, depend on parents or look for sponsors that will believe in them.

Our specially designed Cyberathlete ICO functionality simplifies the money search for career development, all the details are registered in a smart contract. The whole system is similar to Patreon, however, this resource is more focused on content-makers and doesn’t give any guarantees that money will be spent in the right direction.

It’s important to understand that eSports don’t include only sportsmen. Apart from them, there are also managers, sponsors, advertisers. Relationships between those parties usually don’t have a clear structure. The communication between eSports tournament participants in Game Stars platform is simple and clear.

There is an opinion that it’s almost impossible to organize a tournament. It’s partly true as even local tournament organization requires great investments and a lot of effort. The solution is Game Stars platform that provides worked-through scenarios to organize eSports events.

youtube

Bitcoinist: The official Game Stars website offers everyone to become a GST-monopolist. Is it one more feature of the project?

SS: Let’s have a more detailed look at the tokenization. The platform has two types of tokens: GST – the platform’s token and personal tokens of a cyber sportsman, the emission of which will be carried out within internal mini-ICO (CICO).

GST token emission is limited to 500 million. All tokens are allocated for the Token Sale and unsold ones will be immediately burned. At the same time, the GST token is tightly integrated into the platform as a means of payment. As it is mentioned in our Whitepaper, it will be used for the following purposes:

Issuing smart contracts for cyber sportsmen.

Purchase of personal tokens of cyber sportsmen through the CICO.

Prize fund formation.

Tournament participation fees.

Payment of cyber sportsmen income earned in the platform.

If you have a closer look at the list, you can see that 4 out of 5 directions will cause a shortage of tokens. Tokens will be allocated to exchanges only by gamers that will decide to transfer part of their earnings into cryptocurrencies or fiat money. Thus, the number of available tokens will constantly be reduced and the price on the exchanges will grow.

Tokens issued within the CICO will be issued in a limited edition: 100 tokens per player. Their goal is to support cyber sportsmen financially and afterward to bring income from winnings to their holders.

A clear definition of success does not exist, one must constantly work on the result.

Bitcoinist: Challenges make us stronger. What difficulties does your project face?

SS: Luckily, we don’t have any problems at the moment. The main goal is to tell everyone about the platform and its solutions and attract the attention of as many people as possible.

Bitcoinist: But there are hundreds of new projects entering the crypto market weekly, and each of them promotes their ideas and speak of the uniqueness…

SS: A good project is not afraid of the competition. We are sure that people who are interested in eSports and face the above-mentioned problems will join us and appraise opportunities that we offer. We have great plans for the future, but we can’t tell them for now. Game Stars is rising: we’ve established partnerships with large exchanges during the initial stage of project development, participate in thematic conferences, introduce our platform to major players of the crypto world.

It is very important that the whole team of Game Stars development are not random people who gathered to “quickly launch an ICO and then earn money on a token exchange rate,” but a full-fledged, specially recruited team, all members of which are working full-time on the project. As you remember, we won’t have our tokens – everything will be sold through the ICO – so we have clear and far-reaching plans for the project development and support.

Bitcoinist: ICO market is currently in crisis and people are treating new projects with caution and invest only a small sum of money as there were too many scam-projects in the market. Were you afraid to launch the Token Sale during such a complicated period?

SS: Launching any startup is always risky. I’ve participated in many projects and know what emotions you have when your brainchild goes live in a world of sometimes unfair competition. New projects make me alive, give me an opportunity to move forward, enjoy the results. Speaking of the ICO market, we obviously see and know the way investors are treating new projects at the moment.

As said by Winston Churchill, “Never waste a good crisis.” The pre-sale stage was closed really fast, and we’ve realized that people are interested in the project and they believe in it just like we do. The token sale is in full swing now and intermediate results are positive. My team and I are sure that our project is worthwhile and investors will notice it for sure.

Bitcoinist: It’s clever that you’ve used Churchill’s quote. Do you have a credo that you follow in your personal and professional life?

SS: Yes, I have one. People I work with on the project and I are sharing it together. It’s a quote from the famous American writer, entrepreneur, and coach Anthony Robbins:

The road to success is always under construction. It is a progressive course, not an end to be reached.

In my opinion, there is no clear definition of success. Being honest while doing your business is also important. There is a lack of honesty in the eSports industry now – players are facing fraud from the organizers’ side from year to year, many of them are hopelessly struggling to reach the top.

I think our platform will make it simpler to walk the path for those who were not lucky to meet professional players or find a sponsor themselves. After all, the industry has long had a situation when a talented but unknown player works as a consultant in an electronic store when his place and vocation is to be on the big stage at a large LAN tournament and enjoy ovations of the whole stadium audience.

Do you have any additional questions for Sergey Sevidov? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Game Stars

Bitcoinist does not endorse and is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products or other materials on this page. Readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company.

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takenews-blog1 · 6 years

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How hate speech crowdfunding outfit Hatreon crept back online

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/how-hate-speech-crowdfunding-outfit-hatreon-crept-back-online/

How hate speech crowdfunding outfit Hatreon crept back online

If you wish to make a residing creating white supremacist content material, you’re in all probability not going to do it through websites like Kickstarter and Patreon, which prohibit hate speech. Happily there’s Hatreon, a hate speech crowdfunding website that, regardless of having been booted from the online by a pair hosts, is again on-line and desirous to allow you to again your favourite xenophobe.

Hatreon was primarily faraway from the general public internet in August, when its host Digital Ocean terminated its providers. However it reappeared, its area registered at Tucows by means of Njalla, a privacy-focused area registry service that obscures the identification of the registrant. Cloudflare appears to be offering DNS and the remainder of its traditional CDN and DDoS safety providers. (Replace: This paragraph beforehand said that Cloudflare terminated its providers to Hatreon in August – it didn’t. It has additionally left Njalla to now be hosted by Tucows-associated Enom.)

I contacted all three to see in the event that they’re conscious that Hatreon is a buyer and that the location encourages and financially helps hate speech; Tucows assist ultimately provided the next assertion:

Tucows/OpenSRS has no management or possession over this area. We’re simply the Registrar. We don’t host any content material or present bandwidth.

Tucows’ Ross Rader additionally replied to questions from Ryan Block (who was a useful collaborator on this publish, and tweeted his personal conclusions right here) indicating that the corporate doesn’t take into account Hatreon a buyer:

a) they aren’t a buyer – we work by means of resellers and b) even presuming we all know upfront how somebody will use a registration, ought to we additionally get to select which startups we offer registrations to? which political candidates? abortion docs? NRA activists?

That appears to be as a result of technically, their buyer was Njalla, which acts as an middleman between the efficient proprietor of a website and the registrar. It’s a bit like a shell firm for domains. I agree with Block that it’s disingenuous to faux that Hatreon is just not a buyer of Tucows — solely the thinnest membrane separates them. It’s very very similar to saying you’re not taking cash from a white supremacist as a result of they handed it to another person handy to you.

Rader’s clarification that (ought to he be ready to confess that Hatreon have been a buyer) they’ll’t choose and select who to supply providers to holds extra water. There don’t look like any limits on speech within the Tucows phrases of service — not that I might discover, anyway. There are many laws for complying with nation code necessities and so forth, however no part saying, for instance, that Nazi publications aren’t welcome. Njalla, likewise, has prohibitions in opposition to “unlawful actions” however nothing pertaining to hate speech, harassment, abuse, and so on.

Replace: Whereas Njalla didn’t initially reply to my requests for remark, founder Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi contacted me shortly in the past to say that Hatreon is the truth is not welcome on the service, though it was not mirrored within the FAQ or phrases.

“Certain, Hatreon did register with njalla to start with. They determined to not be a buyer fairly rapidly,” wrote Sunde; the location’s house owners determined to go away after being contacted by Njalla admins. “We’re not giving out any names of buyer information after all, however we additionally don’t take part in any right-wing extremist funding or something like that. I all the time try in direction of the stability of an open and secure web. Discovering the best stability is tough typically, however a call about Hatreon is sort of simple for me personally.”

The dialog round Hatreon and different websites claiming to supply shelter from what they see as politicized, left-leaning tech platforms is a charged one, and the query of when — particularly — it’s acceptable to limit speech or shut off a platform to it’s removed from settled.

However as a part of that dialog it’s additionally essential to name a spade a spade: Hatreon’s said goal is to empower and defend purveyors of hate speech, and its hottest initiatives are actually by neo-Nazis. Both a platform permits that, or it doesn’t.

Once I checked final month, Andrew Anglin, who runs the Each day Stormer, had $7,788.61 coming his manner each month. Swedish neo-Nazi group Nordic Resistance and all-purpose white supremacists Id Evropa had greater than $1,000 per thirty days in backing. Different proud racist people like Richard Spencer and Sam Hyde have been additionally receiving a whole bunch per thirty days to finance their vaguely articulated operations.

Nevertheless, the location on the time warned that “Pledging might solely work intermittently whereas we endure testing,” although Hatreon confirmed to me that its payout system (it’s unclear what fee processor is getting used, although PayPal is an possibility for payouts) was functioning regardless of that message. Since then, the location has up to date once more with a discover that pledging is disabled, and founder Cody Wilson advised The New York Occasions “main bank card firm” had eliminated them from their platform.

What is that this firm? The location contained PayPal references; that firm advised me that each Hatreon and GhostGunner.web, Wilson’s gun-printing website that he used as a proxy for funds, had been banned a while in the past. Shopify, additionally utilized by GhostGunner, advised me they’d no indication that Hatreon was utilizing the platform.

But a fee initiated on Hatreon by Block went by means of in November, processed by means of a GhostGunner account. If Hatreon makes use of GhostGunner as a proxy for funds, and GhostGunner makes use of Shopify for its personal funds, that appears to point Hatreon is not directly utilizing Shopify. I’ve requested the corporate for clarification on this, and whether or not the corporate lately booted GhostGunner — which might circumstantially determine it as the corporate that not directly hamstrung Hatreon. The corporate has indicated previously that it’ll not choose and select its prospects based mostly on ideology, however will “defer to the regulation.”

Replace: Cody Wilson contacted TechCrunch to elucidate that his firm, Protection Distributed, does use Shopify as an ecommerce platform for GhostGunner, however not as a funds processor. It follows that Hatreon is just not utilizing Shopify however another funds processor. It was my mistake to conflate the 2 and make that connection.

Regardless of these technical and monetary issues, that is an energetic funding engine for hate speech — not unlawful, and unlawful for the federal government to limit, but in addition demonstrably a goal which some privately run platforms select to not assist.

MailChimp, for example, was alerted to Hatreon’s use of its providers, and though the corporate advised me that it doesn’t touch upon particular person accounts, it additionally famous that it’ll take no half in selling hateful content material. That appears clear sufficient.

Additionally amongst these platforms is Cloudflare; as a result of founder and CEO Matthew Prince beforehand took a controversial stand in primarily personally kicking Each day Stormer off the service, I requested him for extra data on the corporate’s subsequent transfer right here, if any. Though he has been outspoken on this previously, I obtained a response from the corporate’s communications crew with the next assertion:

Cloudflare doesn’t touch upon particular prospects however is conscious of considerations which were raised over some websites on our community. One clarification: Cloudflare is just not the host of any web site. Cloudflare is a community that gives efficiency and safety providers to greater than 7 million domains. Cloudflare terminating any consumer wouldn’t take away their content material from the Web, it will merely make a website slower and extra weak to assault.

Regarding the Each day Stormer, Cloudflare has been clear that this choice didn’t set a precedent for the corporate. That stated, Cloudflare will reply to legitimate court docket course of and work with regulation enforcement in any investigations.

Certainly, Prince did remorse in some methods his choice relating to the Each day Stormer, saying that “We didn’t simply get up and make some capricious choice, however we might have and that’s terrifying.” He known as for a greater course of for this type of factor, and for now that course of doesn’t contain Cloudflare ceasing to supply providers to websites like Hatreon.

Considerably tangentially, I additionally contacted Patreon over whether or not the corporate can be pursuing some type of motion in opposition to Hatreon for what is sort of definitely a trademark violation — the corporate wouldn’t verify or deny it. However one has to think about that if the hate website have been to realize any actual traction, a lawsuit or on the very least a stop and desist wouldn’t be lengthy in coming.

The net is a hostile place in some methods for the likes of Hatreon and the Each day Stormer, however there’s simply sufficient room on the very edges that, with some cautious maneuvering, they’ll nonetheless discover their manner on-line. There’s, in spite of everything, nice demand for what they provide. Happily, these websites and providers are nonetheless nearly as good as radioactive to the platforms essential to allow them at scale, as a result of these platforms are sometimes based on progressive rules and customarily decline to do enterprise with Nazis. Hatreon and its ilk have been supposed to sidestep these platforms and rules, however as you’ll be able to see, it’s more durable than they thought it will be.

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gta-5-cheats · 6 years

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To fix SoundCloud, it must become the anti-Spotify

New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/to-fix-soundcloud-it-must-become-the-anti-spotify/

To fix SoundCloud, it must become the anti-Spotify

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Startups die by suicide, not competition. It wasn’t that anyone was stealing SoundCloud’s underground rappers, bedroom remixers and garage bands. SoundCloud stumbled because it neglected these hardcore loyalists as it wrongly strove to usurp Spotify as the streaming home of music’s superstars.

But four months ago, after laying off 40 percent of its staff, SoundCloud scored a do-or-die investment of $169.5 million that saved the company and brought in a new CEO. Now the question is whether SoundCloud can get back in the groove. I sounded the alarm about SoundCloud’s mishandled headcount cuts, misguided direction and morale problems, so it feels important to lend some suggestions alongside the criticism.

SoundCloud has something no one else does: the world’s biggest archive of user-uploaded music and audio — around 120 million tracks. And so that must be the center of the service.

It once was, but rather than doubling down on independent creators, helping them monetize with ads and commerce and selling subscriptions to enhanced ad-free access, SoundCloud wasted years chasing the major record labels in hopes of building a Spotify competitor full of the most popular music. Finally in mid-2016 it launched the $9.99 SoundCloud Go+ subscription with ad-free access to mainstream music and indie stuff, but it was already years behind Spotify and Apple Music.

In the meantime, the distraction led to extraordinarily slow progress on scaling up advertising, both in terms of the volume of ads on the sites and the independent artists who could get a revenue share. Ads weren’t a big part of SoundCloud, so many users don’t feel it’s worth paying to get rid of them. Creators strayed to YouTube and Patreon, investing their attention and driving their audience to where they could earn money. And spurious take-downs of creators’ music that they already paid SoundCloud to host further burned the company’s cred with its core constituents.

It’s on this guy, SoundCloud’s new CEO Kerry Trainor, to right the ship. I’ve met him, and he’s cooler than he seems. (Photo by Todd Williamson/WireImage)

Luckily, SoundCloud has now booted its former management team, replacing Alex Ljung with former Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor. That gives SoundCloud an opportunity to realign its strategy with the creators who made it unique in the first place. Here’s what we think it needs to do:

Don’t fight Spotify head on

SoundCloud will never be the No. 1 pop music streaming platform, and it needs to accept that. It got started on subscriptions too late and doesn’t have the industry buy-in the way Spotify does from taking the labels on as investors, nor the recommendation data Spotify got from acquiring Echo Nest, nor the massive device install base or war chest to leverage like Apple Music, nor massive ad-supported audience like 1 billion-user YouTube.

So instead of trying to compete with the big dogs directly, SoundCloud should invade from downstream. Rather than marketing its $10 SoundCloud Go+ subscription to casual music fans, it should concentrate on locking in hardcore listeners who love its indie stuff via its free tier or $5 SoundCloud Go subscription just for user-generated content. Then it should upsell them to the $10 plan by touting the convenience of listening to everything in one place, rather than paying $10 a month just for mainstream music elsewhere. The $5 plan should be the focus, and the $10 plan should be the bonus.

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Protect the legal grey area of music

SoundCloud buddied up to the major labels at the expense of the DJs who fueled its ascent. The legal grey area of unofficial remixes and DJ sets are what made SoundCloud indispensable, but are also what got criminalized and sometimes booted off the platform after its label deals. SoundCloud needs to figure out how to settle the copyright payouts on this kind of content so it can stay up on the platform. Whether that means developing its own rights disbursement technology, partnering with a provider of this payout distribution tech like Dubset or outright acquiring it, SoundCloud must be a safe home for this content you can’t find anywhere else. Otherwise, SoundCloud isn’t special.

Become the musician fan club platform

Everyone knows streaming music platforms only pay out a fraction of a cent per listen. That can add up to millions a year if you’re Taylor Swift, but often isn’t enough to support the livelihood of smaller niche artists. But no matter how big or small, almost every artist has a percentage of listeners who are die-hard fans, willing to pay far more than they’d earn a creator in streaming royalties or ad-revenue share.

That’s why artists of all types have turned to subscription patronage platforms like Patreon, where you don’t need millions of fans, just a few thousand paying a buck a month. YouTube, Apple Music and even Spotify have failed to go deep in assisting artists with direct commerce. YouTube is testing Patreon-esque Sponsorships, and Spotify offers some tiny merchandise and concert ticket options on artist profiles.

BYRON BAY, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 27: Fans react to The Wailers performing live onstage at the 2016 Byron Bay Bluesfest on March 27, 2016 in Byron Bay, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

But SoundCloud has a massive opportunity here because it knows its artists can’t sustain themselves on royalties, and the type of listeners on SoundCloud are serious music aficionados. SoundCloud should provide bold options for artists to sell merch and tickets and teach them how to use data to create goods their fans want to buy.

That also means pushing artists toward new revenue streams like offering exclusive experiences. Help artists sell phone calls, meet-and-greets, signed memorabilia, webcam footage of studio sessions, exclusive video streams and more. And finally, provide a channel for artists to communicate directly with their top listeners in more intimate ways than email blasts and Twitter broadcasts.

SoundCloud should be the modern fan club. In an era where you don’t “own” music anymore, the app’s audience of early adopting hipsters might be eager to show their allegiance to their favorite artists with their wallets, not just their ears. And that’s good for everyone.

Let Spotify and Apple Music be the impersonal place for superstars who don’t care about you. SoundCloud could give listeners a deeper experience, artists a bigger paycheck and itself a lucrative corner of the otherwise overcrowded music space. So, Kerry, what are you gonna do?

Featured Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

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