#monetization

[somesecretpie]

Fans and Creators of Webtoons!

I want to talk about Line Webtoon’s new “Super Like” program and why it sucks for literally everyone.

What is a “Super Like?”

According to their website, super likes are a new way for webtoon creators to monetize their work. Readers can pay real money to buy a super like for their favorite webtoon, and the creator gets a fraction of that money.

Wait, a fraction? Not all of it?

Yep! Webtoon skims quite a chunk off the top.

30% goes to Webtoon, and then another 30% of that amount goes to the payment processor.

So what do creators get? 49 cents for every dollar their fans try to give them. Literally half.

That’s pretty ludicrous, right?

Interestingly enough, they announced that they had a “tipping system” in the works in the same email they ended the CANVAS creator rewards program (and many comic creators livelihoods)

They said tipping system in their social media posts too

Obviously this tipping system is referring to super likes right? They say they’re going to do a tipping system, and then this rolls out.

But “tips” are not something that buisinesses can just take a cut of, at least not in the United States. According to the Department of Labor, it is illegal for any amount of tips from customers to go to an employer.

Webtoon is trying to walk back this language, of course. You won’t find the word “tip” anywhere on their website page explaining how it works. But those old social media posts are still up.

This is all pretty scummy

But wait, it gets worse!

They removed the Patreon button at the end of episodes and replaced it with this:

Yep! That’s right. Webtoon really said “what if we replace the tipping system that already existed with a shittier one where you only get half of it 🥺”

Unsurprisingly, they faced a ton of backlash.

Webtoon was quick to point out that the Patreon button was only removed from the end of episodes and there was still a button on the creator’s homepage. But of course, the end of episodes is where that button matters the most.

Creators know this. Webtoon knows this.

Eventually, after days of continued complaints from creators on social media, Webtoon went on damage control mode and announced that they would be putting the Patreon button back at the end of episodes—

As of right now (May 11th, 2024) the Patreon button is still not back.

***

So…Super likes are “super totally not a tip.”

But if they aren’t tips…what are they?

Well there’s a bit more to the story of what a super like actually is. After announceing the program, the app updated to reveal a new ranking category on the front page

When you click on this ranking tab, you can see that there is now both a daily and weekly ranking

If you’re a CANVAS creator, you know how difficult and seemingly random it can be to get your comic on the front page of the app—so my immediate worry was that comic creators were going to buy superlikes on their own series to get in this ranking and…

Yep, that’s already happening.

But why would webtoon even allow creators to buy superlikes for themselves? How does that make sense?

Surely goading desperate creators into buying superlikes can’t be that lucrative, can it?

No. I think there’s another, possibly even worse reason.

Fandom wars

If you’re into music, you probably are aware of how common it is for super fans to make concerted efforts to get their favorite musician to the top of the billboard charts. They coordinate over social media, stream music on loop as soon as an album drops to inflate the numbers, buy albums in bulk to increase sales, all so that they can say their fav is number one. It’s especially common among K-pop fans and swifties

This phenomena is well documented

Fans of Webtoons can be just as ravenous as K-pop, so I think Webtoon is trying to capitalize on this. They want to encourage fandom war and make money. That’s why they have this ranking. Not only can super fans brag about their favorite series topping the charts but they can wear their super like proudly on their reader profile that webtoon will be rolling out soon.

They’re just testing this super like stuff out on CANVAS right now, but once this starts up with originals? Oh. It will be a very profitable, very terrible mess.

(Oh and I mean profitable for webtoon, not creators, in case that wasn’t clear.)

***

Anyway, if you’re a creator, do yourself a favor and don’t enable super likes.

If you’re a fan of a webcomic, just donate to that creators patreon or Ko-Fi to show your support. Don’t give a red cent to webtoon because they did not do any of the work to make the series you love, alright?

Also check out my webtoon haha.

[nestedneons]

A different way to monetize art online, please upvote my idea!

[sag-dab-sar]

Monetizing Accessibility

I wrote a review awhile ago for an app that I heavily relied on due to my dyslexia and TBI— Speechify. Its a text-to-speech reader that I can take photos of text books or signs and have them read to me. I used it plenty. You can take as many photos as you want, upload them, and have it read to you. Well..... thats what you used to be able to do. Then I updated the app and tah dah the main feature is behind a paywall!!! I can upload 3 files (photo/photoset) only! And if I want more I have to pay THIS fucking much:

So I updated my app review from 5 stars to 1

Then a long time later I got this email:

"One time discount" on something that was fucking free. Its the most basic feature. There were plenty of additional features to pay for and ads prior. Now the ENTIER goddamn app, including the absolute most basic function, above 3 files is behind a $140 paywall. I don't want 90% of the features just keeping files like I could before. Its not even a one time fee; its a subscription. As if my TBI and dyslexia only lasts a year. Not to mention I already deleted my entire library.

I fucking hate how goddamn expensive being disabled it is. The email is an insult.

[fansplaining]

Today we're thrilled to publish our latest article—a piece on U.S copyright law and fandom by @earlgreytea68!

Fan creators don’t speak with one voice any more than any creative community speaks with one voice. I am well aware that I am one of you, but I am definitely not all of you. But most fan creators don’t consider themselves to be lazy or thieves—including me. In fact, all the fan creators that I know work very hard on our creations. We don’t consider ourselves to be stealing anything, because what we “steal”—some characters, some settings—is part of our cultural heritage, part of the world around us, part of the raw material we’ve been given to examine and make sense of our world, the way creators have for millennia.

She'll also discuss the topic on this week's episode, out today for Patrons and tomorrow for everyone else!

[bisexualbaker]

Dreamwidth and privacy, Dreamwidth and apps

I got an ask about Dreamwidth that has since completely vanished from my inbox and my activity feed, but it had some important questions that I wanted to answer, so I'm going to try and address them anyway:

"How's Dreamwidth on privacy? Do they data mine?"

They only take as much information as they are legally obligated to and/or is needed to make the site actually function. You are the only one who gets to decide how much of that you share with the public, or how little.

Dreamwidth makes the money it needs to run the site entirely through its userbase. They do not sell our data and do not want to.

"Do they have a mobile app too?"

No, and they probably never will. I know this is a disappointment for a lot of Tumblr users, but it's one of the primary ways that Dreamwidth can ensure that it's free to use for all users, and that we can post as much NSFW stuff there as we want.

That said, the Dreamwidth team has done everything they can to make the site friendly to mobile browsing! IIRC there are even some layouts that are particularly friendly to mobile browsing. Install Firefox/Mozilla on your phone, or a clone of it you particularly like, and log in through that, and you should be able to use the site just as well as you could from a desktop computer.

[phoenixyfriend]

My sister keeps telling me to monetize my tumblr if I regularly have posts with decent numbers of notes and I tried to explain to her that even the biggest names on tumblr (we were talking about vaspider and seananmcguire due to the scooby post getting some traction) don't really make a living off of it, and brand deals aren't a thing on here, and it's not exactly a Thing to transfer followership from this platform to others where it's more expected (insta, tiktok, etc).

And she keeps urging me to do it and I'm just like No, That's Not How Tumblr Works, Nobody Will Trust Me And I'll Lose All My Audience If I Try To Monetize In Any Way Other Than Direct Products Or Begging For Donations, Because Brand Deals And Similar Are Viewed As A Betrayal Of The Tumblr Standard

[emmanuellececchi]

Question for you, followers and moots...

I had a few things with the one I am using at the moment so....

Which one do you prefer? Which is one is bothering you the least? Easier to use? etc. If you know of other, I'll be happy to learn about them. Thanks!

Please reblog for a bigger sample. Thanks again.

(I want the point of view of someone who use it as a supporter)

[nikonladyz4]

Wow, the restaurant where Jungkook had his listening party is trying to promote and monetize “Taekook” for Taehyung’s birthday. Shaking my head!

[petterwass]

Girl's Frontline 2 having all its shop skins being only purchasable with real money is blatantly homophobic.

I guess I've been too spoiled by Arknights.

[lightlyknitted]

Assigning a price to your hobbies

I learned how to knit nearly a decade ago while my siblings and I were staying with our grandma. It was my idea that the others got roped into when I tried to knit with a gray yarn and US 4 knitting needles – not my greatest idea.

I would learn to crochet a few years later before I started college. Growing up, my knitting was a hobby and just that. I did not have a youtube channel where I talked about my crafting, I never made a blog and I certainly never made a tik tok about it. I just made things, it didn't matter if they were good or bad, they were just for me.

I would learn to crochet a few years later before I started college. Growing up, my knitting was a hobby and just that. I did not have a youtube channel where I talked about my crafting, I never made a blog and I certainly never made a tik tok about it. I just made things, it didn't matter if they were good or bad, they were just for me.

read the rest below:

[wip]

two questions...Will there be a time in the future where Tumblr users might be able to monetise their posts similar to that of twitter users do with some of theirs (obviously subscription based)? or if we buy a domain from Tumblr can we put our own ads into the website to make money…is that allowed?

Thank you!

Answer: Hey there, @nornirthefrog!

Thanks for getting in touch. We are glad you asked, but this is a complicated question. We have made some efforts with similar ideas before but with mixed results. Let us explore it in three parts:

Firstly, we had Post+ as a way to do paid-sponsor-only posts. That, however, was shut down in January of 2024: https://postplus.tumblr.com/home.

We had Tipping, a way to donate directly to a blogger. That shut down in June of 2024: https://changes.tumblr.com/post/749295377342251008/tipping-is-going-away-on-june-1-2024.

You are allowed to run ads on your own blog within our guidelines. But that will only work if your blog has a custom theme: https://help.tumblr.com/on-blog-advertising/#third-party-ads.

We hope that helps to clarify things. Keep the questions coming, folks!

[omnitheist27]

The 40 - A good investment

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@the-ravenclaw-werewolf and @purplemochi20055

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"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." - Benjamin Franklin

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I'm back again with another daily drabble of The 40. (Encouraging the completion of the final chapter of Main Character Syndrome (With Exceptions))

After going through some investments I made in Robinhood.com while trying to find a job, I decided to apply my woefully illiterate financial knowledge to the characters of The 40 by having an OC give them a challenge involving a loan of a ¥100 check.

The challenge? Use the ¥100 check and raise up to ¥100,000 in the stock trade by the end of the month.

Edward and Haruhi are woefully unknown to the Japanese stock trade, they are hitting up the books in the library regarding business and economics, and learning at a fast pace while simultaneously interested in the financial subjects. While Senku and Kobayashi started investing the ¥100 check into stocks.

To raise ¥100,000 in such a short time, the four members of The 40 traded like crazy. Many days went by as they loaded themselves with free caffeine to keep their eyes glued to the rise and fall of the stock trade, adding a certain level of stress.

To help ease things, Senku and Kobayashi both wrote their own computer programs using the library's computers that can track trends, analyze data, and automatically invest in something that would profit.

By the end of the month, the four of them managed to earn themselves good fortune that not only paying back the ¥100,000 and having a good amount of paper currency for themselves, but also gaining some great financial experience and literacy.

----

Speaking of money, I think it's a good time for me to start doing the "tipping" feature of Tumblr to earn some side income for my artwork.

Just click on the "tip" icon below for more of my drawings!

[qortrola]

The Future of Decentralized Gaming has arrived, Don't believe me? Then dive into the essence of what I envision for this revolutionary Idea. Help bring it into fruition by reading, analyzing, and understanding the conceptual framework I've created. The beginning of the future is now, Read My blogs below, where I bridge the current Web2 centralized legacy gaming systems into a Decentralized Web3 ecosystem, Enabling Gamers to be incentivized, monetized, and recognized for their gaming data-which only will be in their Control.

Welcome to QorTrola Gaming, where #Web3, #Blockchain, #Crypto, #Decentralization, #DePIN, #Data, #Gaming, #BlockchainGaming, #Monetization, #Hardware and #IoT all combine to create a dedicated system for gamers to control and sell their gaming data as they please.

Check it out 👇

https://qortrolagaming.wordpress.com/

[catandgirlcomic]

The Best Things in Life Are Free

[fansplaining]

Episode 218: The Money Question 3: Books???

Following previous installments on the thorny intersections of money and fanfiction, Episode 218, “The Money Question 3: Books???” tackles the recent debacle around people illegally selling bound copies of others’ fic, which has mostly centered on mega-popular Dramione works. Jumping off from Elizabeth’s WIRED article on the subject—which ties the practice to the current pull-to-publish wave as well as the Twilight fan-run presses of the early 2010s—Elizabeth and Flourish discuss the context collapse when a fic “breaches containment,” double standards in attitudes towards money and various fan practices, and, for likely the 1,000th time on this podcast, what exactly “fair use” means. 

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

[kabutoden]

Hi! I'm thinking of opening a patreon. Posting continues as usual, but subscribers get access to all my old comics and monthly ill release some writing talking about and collection of art for a project, like putting all my bugstuck, razor rabbit or chimera claws art in one place. maybe monthly streams if ppl want to talk to me idk... im planning on posting a lot more of both bugstuck + original work in the future. i hope thats ok thank you all for following.

i dont have a job but i need income and i really dont enjoy monetizing my work. selling comics is hard when you want to release everything for free >_< getting a couple dollars from ppl who enjoy seeing my stuff would help a lot!