chainBB's path forward - a discussion on revenue
Up until now, chainBB has very much been an experimental project. I believe it can be much more than that, and I've been working on building out a plan of how this could unfold. To continue I need to break out of my bubble and opening up the flow of ideas, primarily to get feedback from you. That's what this post is all about.
If you're new here, or are just generally unaware of what chainBB is, I'll give you a brief primer. chainBB is a different interface, modeled after traditional forum software, built on the Steem blockchain - which is the same blockchain that Steemit.com uses (Steem and Steemit are different things). Data is shared between all the different websites (steemit.com and chainbb.com included) providing a decentralized community unlike anything else in the history of the internet. I won't dive too deep into the details, but I'm happy to answer questions in the comments and further reading can be found here:
- introducing chainBB.com - a blockchain forum platform for Steem by @jesta
- chainBB - A Review of what may become way bigger than steemit.com / /chainbb/@cryptoctopus/chainbb-a-review-of-what-may-become-way-bigger-than-steemit-comby @cryptoctopus
- chainBB - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I'd also invite you to continue reading this post itself on chainBB within the /f/announcements forum:
https://beta.chainbb.com/announcements/@jesta/chainbbs-path-forward-a-discussion-on-revenue
Building an organization around the Steem blockchain
To put this entire post in perspective, I want to outline what I'd like to achieve:
- To build an organization to continue development of this new type of social platform (one comparable to Steemit Inc).
- To provide infrastructure for the users of the Steem blockchain.
- To hire talent that adds value to both the organization and blockchain.
- To contribute when possible to the evolution of the blockchain itself.
To accomplish these goals, two primary resources are needed: time(people) and funding.
Most in the crypto world have caught onto this ICO craze as a way to meet those goals, but I don't feel that's the correct route for this product. There may be a time and a place for a fund raising event like that, but it's unsustainable and not the only way. The approach I want to take is small and incremental growth, which is starting with just myself building out this prototype, expanding the team when possible, and building this around a sustainable revenue model.
I am still not 100% certain this is possible or that I'm the guy to do it, but I am exploring the potential with the above in mind.
The hurdles of the Steem Ecosystem
When evaluating the potential here, getting to intimately know the Steem ecosystem (good and bad) is incredibly important. I have spent most of the last year focused on this topic and think my understanding at this point is more comprehensive than most. There's still a lot to figure out though, and I'm hoping this post is the first of many that slowly start a dialog about how I (and others) can best build these types of organizations.
At a high level, a couple of the most challenging barriers to break through include:
- Adoption: Resolving pain points preventing main stream participation.
- Competition: Competing against Steemit's home field advantage.
- Revenue: The service itself needs to somehow support itself and at least have a non-negative cash flow on upkeep.
I've come up with a few approaches to dealing with these and now is the time I want to start gathering feedback on them.
Instead of one massive post, I want to address them one at a time, and to start with I want to talk about Revenue.
The Revenue Model
The first implementation of Revenue I'd like to discuss on chainBB is simple as it's core: selling/leasing forum hosting. Any user will be able to reserve/create a forum on the Steem blockchain and have it hosted on the chainBB servers at a cost. They are then free to build their own community of users and do with it as they wish. Upgrade can be purchased with increased functionality, and more features can be added to provide additional flexibility/features to these forums, and provide additional sources of revenue.
The customer is those people who wish to start, participate in, and build communities within a forum interface. For those who don't want to host via chainBB, but would rather do it on their own server, that's fine too as it's an open source application and the data is all derived from the blockchain itself. However, there will be no support (from me) at this stage simply because it's such an early product, and it's not a simple setup like phpBB (yet).
As an example, this post was written on chainBB using the new /f/announcements forum I created earlier today. It's got this one post in it and will be where chainBB users can see updates related to the service.
What I need to determine is what the community feels is acceptable for it's cost.
Updated: I'd invite you to read this comment thread instead to see where this idea led.
Currently, I propose the following price structure for forums on chainBB.com:
1 STEEM: You get a basic, non-moderated, chainBB hosted, Steem powered forum.50 STEEM: Unlocks the ability for you to moderate the content of this forum.250 STEEM: Unlocks beneficiary rewards - owner now earns 5% of the beneficiary rewards for posts made through this forum. Break-even point for owner is 5k STEEM generated by it's users (5000 * 0.05 (5%) = 250 STEEM).
This type of unlocking structure would also allow for further expansion - features such as custom themes, domains, homepages, and other things people may want for a larger scale community (think bitcointalk). These amounts could be permanent unlocks or they could be yearly subscriptions. All of these options are still being evaluated and I'd love to know what you think.
Questions I think people will have...
Why wouldn't I use a free alternative?
Fundamentally, we've all been spoiled by the perception of "free". Very few things are actually "free" - normally they're either selling your data, taking ownership of data, or advertising to you. They use these to generate revenue off of you to pay for those services and take profits. They don't want you to pay, because both of those forms of data are way more valuable than whatever you'd be willing to pay out of pocket.
Steemit is "free" today because it was funded with mining very early on, but doesn't generate revenue at all off of you. That's a finite amount of funding that cannot last forever. I won't be surprised someday if Steemit has a cost associated to it.
None of these are suitable options for chainBB to provide a truly free platform - so I'm working through alternatives.
What's happening to everything on chainBB currently?
All the existing forums are going to be removed, but you'd be able to create a forum for whatever you'd like. The existing forums have no owners and I don't have the capacity to maintain them or systems to assign moderation of them.
The great thing is that none of the posts are going away - they're all on the Steem blockchain! The minute someone recreates one of those forums and configures it appropriately, it will exist.
What is forum moderation? Can posts be censored?
In a sense, you could make that argument. The moderators of a particular forum will be able to remove topics (posts) from displaying within that forum. The post still exists, it's able to be loaded by tag and URL, just not visible in that forum. The moderation on chainBB will do nothing to the way the post displays on Steemit.com.
The goal of moderation itself is transparency, and to that end it will be on the blockchain and visible to the world. Users will also be able to see all the posts that were moderated, much like you can view the spam folder in your inbox. If you don't approve of how a forum is run, you're free to start your own forum with the exact same content, just moderated differently. Imagine if /r/Bitcoin or /r/btc could be duplicated and instantly contain all of the removed posts - that's what you're able to do with the power of a forum on a blockchain.
How will the beneficiary rewards work?
For the top tier forums: a beneficiary reward (proposed at 5%) goes to the forum owner for each post made from that forum interface. There are no payouts from chainBB, these accounts will be added as the posts are created and rewarded the moment each post is rewarded (see the @chainbb account on steemd for example). chainBB will be reduced from 15% to 10%, keeping current amount an author would return on chainBB in tact. The recipient of the beneficiary reward will be free to do with those funds whatever they choose, hopefully in ways to increase participation within their community or as a reward for those who contribute.
When I initially set chainBB's beneficiaries at 15%, it was for this reason. The goal was and still is to keep the percentage at a consistent 15% from authors, while being able to reallocate that 15% in different ways to support the project. However, if this new product launches and offers 5% to owners, chainBB will remain committed to that agreement even if other percentages change.
The system in the future could be expanded to allow:
- Configurable accounts which the owner can set. If a forum had a team consisting of an owner and 3 hired moderators, they could automatically divide beneficiary rewards between them (say 2% owner, 1% each moderator = 5% total).
- Potentially increasing the 5% to x% for additional higher tiers
What about the "Communities" (proper) feature that Steemit Inc is working on?
These two features (forums and communities) will both play well together. The forum protocol at this point is incredibly small with very specific features, which as far as I'm aware don't overlap.
Once communities is released onto the Steem blockchain - the chainBB forums can use the community protocol to add more features and options. Users will be able to seamlessly participate in these communities either on steemit.com (with the primary community interface) or chainBB.com (with the forum interface).
Isn't beneficiary rewards enough?
Currently no, sadly. If this is to become a true rival to other platforms, it needs a team and an organization behind it, which costs money. The overall beneficiary rewards that chainBB currently earns (15%) covers the upkeep for a forum with hundreds of daily active users, but it won't when we reach 10k or 1m. Since launch, chainBB has averaged ~50 STEEM/day in earnings, with nearly 40% of those rewards coming from my posting alone. The higher tier forums will also reduce beneficiary rewards by 33% cutting into whatever growth may occur.
The hope is that the STEEM/day rewards will increase as forum creators start engaging and building their own community, and will be supplemented by the costs associated with forum hosting. The beneficiary rewards themselves may be more significant someday (or less), and over time how beneficiary rewards work with chainBB can be altered.
My questions for you, if you made it this far
- How do you feel about the proposed pricing?
- Is 1 STEEM too much of a barrier or is it too low of a price?
- Would sharing in 5% of the revenue of a forum be encouragement for you to build one? Would the price stop you?
- Are you interested in starting a forum? (I may get some early adopters on board at this point, dependant on feedback)
Basically any thoughts you have about how this could be priced are appreciated. It can't be free like it exists now for an indefinite amount of time, and I can't continue development forever if it can't help pay my bills. But this is a project I'm passionate about, that I want to work on, and want to engage with you with to try and figure out. Discussing these ideas with you will help shape how this feature is released.
Also for those of you that are curious about the state of chainBB - most of the above is already developed and waiting to be released. If you've visited chainBB recently, you might notice some new shine on it's UI :)
Great discussion starter. I'l have to admit, I've never actually posted through ChainBB though I have used the interface and been very interested as I'd like to set up a community in the future. So the best I can do is give you my take on pricing structure.
I feel the 1 Steem starter setup is on the low end, while the 250 Steem unlock may be a bit high.
The 1 Steem option may have you dealing with too many spam forums that people set up just to play around or test it out. I think this could easily bump up to 10 Steem at minimum.
The 250 Steem to unlock beneficiary rewards seems a bit high. I don't think its really too much to pay for the value your system may offer, but at this point your incentives are totally aligned with your forum owners. The sooner someone has beneficiary rewards the more incentivized they are to recruit people to use their forum thereby driving greater use of the ChainBB system and increasing your 10% revenue split.
If anything I could see forum features and customizations as paid unlocks for anywhere from 10-50 Steem each depending on what they bring to the table, but the beneficiary rewards split could be entirely unlocked and scaled based on forum activity and success. Kind of like any affiliate program, the revenue share of the forum owners increases with volume. Thresholds could be established that unlock 1% increments from 0-10% or so. Example, $100 in generated post rewards a month unlocks 1%. ChainBB at this point will be getting $14 a month and the forum owner will be getting $1! This gives folks a taste for the revenue split however small and gets them hooked...
$500 = 2% owner ($10) 13% ChainBB($65)
We can see here that even at this level, its a great deal more for ChainBB than could be expected from any subscription model or one off payment.
$1000 = 3% owner ($30) 12% ChainBB ($120)
$2500 = 4% owner ($100) 11% ChainBB ($275)
and so on. With extremely active forums that may generate substantial value, I think it's important for the ChainBB split to drop to 5% or below at that point. It would still result in a handsome revenue stream for support services.
Looking forward to seeing how things progress. At some point I know I'll be a customer for sure, and I'll do my best to start in as a user in the very near future to help with your fundraising!
I started started playing with the numbers, is this along the lines of what you were talking about?
This starts heavier on the chainBB side (to ensure revenue is happening), then chainBB sort of plateaus. The 7/8/9/10% ranges all increase the owner more drastically than chainBB.
Another thing I'm thinking about is the timeframe for this calculation.
I'm thinking I start it off as the sum of the posts from the last 30 days. So the % earned by the forum owners would fluctuate over time, and abandoned forums would eventually dwindle back down to the initial 1%.
30 days might be a hardship on forum owners though - and that number could be increased to 45/60/90 days if it turned out to be too rough. I'd rather start with it being difficult though and then relax it, as that would be a welcome announcement. If it's too relaxed in the beginning - a lot of people would be frustrated at it becoming more difficult, should the need arise.
Looks great! I just have a few quick notes/thoughts.
It seems to me like you should avoid the curve trending back down on your end. You shouldn’t make less at the 5% split than the 6% split. Pushing that goalpost to 7200 keeps the revenue at least even.
I may be biased since I’d like to own a forum... but I do think it makes sense to average a longer period of time, particularly in terms of decreasing an owners revenue share. For example, the first calendar month that a forum achieves a milestone they get the % bump, but then a rolling 60-90 day average determines if they lose it. It could help smooth out growth and ensure 1 off month, or the transition period between milestones doesn’t result in a forum bouncing back & forth between %s. This would also allow you to run reporting and adjust %s one particular day each month for everyone.
Lastly, Are these figures in Steem or USD? Steem would be more stable for reporting purposes and fluctuations, but as it grows in value you may need to adjust these down as it stabilizes at certain levels. If Steem spikes to 5-10 USD for instance, new forums drawing in a lot of users new to the Steem ecosystem would become more disadvantaged trying to hit $ post revenue goals 5-10x higher than they are today. ChainBBs revenue share would also go a lot further, hitting $1500-$3000 USD a month even on the mid level forums of this chart. At that point these goals could be relaxed if they’re being valued in Steem.
Thank you again for the feedback - I've really needed some human interaction to help work through what I've been plotting for so long. Send me a PM on steemit.chat if/when you've got a few moments and if you'd like to give it a spin.
If you're interested, I figured I'd share the latest iteration:
Some thoughts I had while adjusting things:
I like the level progression feel, definitely appeals to the rpg gamer in me! The reward curves look great, especially the early progression. I actually messaged you in chat a little while ago, I already set up a forum! Process was easy and straightforward. I'm looking forward to really launching it in a few days.
I have to reread the post and this reply like 10 more times. But I sent you 10 STEEM @jesta hoping I can reserve beer section. Obviously, eh? I like your thinking @jesta and @bryan-imhoff made me send 10 rather than 1. Good luck!
I know that you've already made up your mind @jesta, but I'll give you my opinion regardless.
Now that I've been using chainBB for a bit I feel like 10 steem to register a forum might be too much. I've about 4 forums that I'd like to register. If it were 1 steem, I would've done so already, but 10 steem each is way too steep for me. Once you've a way to ignore forums (remove them from the mainpage, hide them or collapse them) the more forums the better. I don't think spammy forums will be a problem then, since you won't even see them once you hide/collapse them.
I'm sure there are people using chainBB that want to post something on a forum that does not yet exist and don't feel like creating the forum themselves. So what do they do? They don't create said post.
I think you should incentivize the creation of new forums, and 10 steem is not really doing that, in my opinion.
I can't disagree. I think for the time being it will remain unchanged, but you're right, encouraging creation should be the priority here, and eventually that'll probably be the route to go.
Once the product evolves more and there's a better homepage (like you mentioned) maybe I can revisit this.
Hey Jesta, first off I want to congratulate you for being so transparent and open in your development process. This is exactly the kind of communication that I hope to see from developers in the steem ecosystem, and at this point I have tremendous faith in ChainBB and you.
How do you feel about the proposed pricing?
Pricing seems great. One possible addition that seems fair is this: If a forum is started at a lower tier (for example, if I pay you $50 to start an electronic music forum w/ moderation power), the forum should automatically upgrade to the next tier once you've received enough Beneficiary Rewards to cover the cost.
So in other words - if I start a forum for 50 steem, once we generate you a total of 200 additional steems in beneficiary rewards, we would automatically upgrade to the top tier and start earning our 5% share. I suspect this would create a strong incentive for people to promote and build their communities even if they don't have 250 steem to pay up-front (I don't right now, for example).
Is 1 STEEM too much of a barrier or is it too low of a price?
Too low. I'd say you should bump it up to 10 STEEM to prevent a situation where trolls can easily "DDoS" the system by starting a bunch of crappy unused forums.
Would sharing in 5% of the revenue of a forum be encouragement for you to build one? Would the price stop you?
Yes, I am already interested in participating in this model. It seems like a wonderful way to help build the steem ecosystem while earning rewards in the process.
Are you interested in starting a forum? (I may get some early adopters on board at this point, dependant on feedback)
Yes!! As a long-time steemian in the top 500 users by reputation score, I feel like I could be a prime candidate to be a "beta tester" for the new forum model. If you think I'm a good fit, I would love to talk with you about this.
I completely agree, I just didn't want to promise this for the initial release and that part's not completely built. I left some more thoughts along these lines on the comment by @bryan-imhoff and I think between everything that's been said now I have a pretty clear direction on getting it implemented at some point, regardless of the initial pricing.
I definitely think having a way for users to upgrade their forums organically through the system makes a ton of sense.
We should definitely talk then! I'm not ready yet, but will be within days. Today I'm going to try and engage with this post as much as possible and do a bit of development work - but maybe we can chat more directly about it very soon.
I didn't have responses to your other answers but to say thank you hah.
Cool Jesta, that sounds great. I'm on steemit.chat as @heymattsokol so you can hit me up there whenever you want to talk :-)
Great stuff, @jesta!
Maybe this is obvious, and sorry if I'm being stupid, but if I were to start a forum today for "cryptocurrency", would it have 0 posts but all the Steemit "users"? Or, like most forums, would users have to "sign up" before they would have permission to post in that forum? Would it only show posts that were created via ChainBB, not all the posts in the STEEM #cryptocurrency tag? Do you imagine there'd ever be a bidding war or name squatters who might want to snatch up all the "f/...whatever..." names?
I may be interested in launching a cryptocurrency forum. I think the siloed approaches today which focus on a single currency miss the future concept of currency as a form of language where we can all freely exchange between any coins we prefer. I love the idea of promoting a rock-solid place for great discussions about any and all cryptocurrencies.
More and more, as I look for various articles on cryptocurrency news and projects, I find myself landing on Steemit search results. That's pretty cool. :)
I wonder if it would make sense to build into the posting a standard header/footer so that posts viewed on Steemit would clearly indicate this post was designed to be viewed within the forum community which created it and encourage people to click over and use that site instead to help reward and maintain that community. Obviously, that header and footer could be stripped out before rendering on the "home" forum, but every where else that reads that blockchain data would then have a built in, consistent advertisement (with nice graphics, links, etc) pointing people to the source article on ChainBB.
Let's talk more about this, but I like the idea of building up a community, getting rewards for moderation and growth while also increasing the number of people posting and using the ChainBB ecosystem to reward you and encourage even more development and improvements in the future.
Luke and @jesta, I am also interested in developing a forum for cryptocurrency in Chinese (very possibly mainly focusing on out-side PRC Chinese population) and I think the structure for English or Chinese would be very similar if not identical. Or can even merge as one. So if Luke does develop this idea and is interested to take into account of this line, I am all ears.
[FYI - I, along with four other cn friends, created the #laodr-teahouse series post like half an year ago for facilitating general purpose chatting among cn users. So I know how a forum type platform can relieve the pain if there are really lots of comments.]
I am still thinking about the micro-incentives for moderators and forum users. You have provided sth for the former, but for the latter, it seems less obvious why would they come and post here. Discussing here is more likely due to the interface. I might have missed sth since I am not familiar with Chainbb.
I like how after the update I can now login at work on chainbb - previously under beta it just spins. Now I can comment. Our access to websites are locked that includes Steemit and other sites. I appreciate that I can make comments starting today while I'm at work. I can even make posts too! I hope I can contribute, I'm thinking of starting a forum as well but I'm not sure if the people in my community will get used to ChainBB's interface. We have lots of newbies and most are already confused with all the terms and lots of front-end sites based on Steem. I wish your project the best!
This was a very cool and intriguing read, @jesta.
Have you studied the history of paid successful forums like Something Awful? I've caught myself wondering how that place would work out with chainBB applied to it. I'd actually love to see that happen. It could certainly revitalize a dying community. COOL STUFF!!!
Hmm.. 250 STEEM now for permanent passive income, yes please! I have been struggling to find a way to make passive income from the platform while providing assistance in the growth of STEEM blockchain. I am willing to give it a try.
As of this point I am on a savings plan to kick down the 250 STEEM for you future development goals in exchange for this more than fair offer.
STEEM on! Thank you for all your wonderful products!
@ jesta is really good work your guys are doing as witness and trying to develop a workable community for all. I most say is commendable. On the above question, the price i most say is not the issues but the value, i think revenue sharing will be more accommodation to say and i will really love to be part of one.Thanks
I love seeing this type of transparency on the costs of a front end service. I've been running into new users that didn't know that beneficiaries were even a thing when they sign up or start using new front ends. I think whatever fee you need to charge to justify developing it is fine as long as users are made aware of what they are paying when they commit to using your service. I feel the model you presented here is very fair.
Thanks!
Great way to explain what "free" really means. Believe in your idea, and you can make it happen. You'll tweek it along the way to make it right.