Ads are a primary part of the content business models for most legacy social media (SoMe) platforms. Social media advertising was nearly a $200B industry last year and is expected to exceed $225B in 2024. However, this revenue is not shared fairly with creators.
If you are a talented and hard-working content creator, you want to be fairly paid for your work. Yet most existing social media platforms take anywhere from 45–100% of the revenue generated. Does this seem fair to you?
Content revenue – how to make it on social media
This means you probably have to find sponsors and do ad reads to make a living in the creator economy. Are there better platforms for content creators?
With decentralized social media (DeSoc) alternatives, you receive a far higher percentage of the revenue. On many DeSoc platforms, you keep 90–100% of the revenue earned. And with numerous content revenue streams on most DeSoc alternatives, this revenue share matters — a lot.
How is this possible? What are these platforms? And what are the content revenues outside of paid ads?
Read on to discover the burgeoning DeSoc ecosystem and how it is disrupting the wider SoMe industry through user ownership and fairer revenue models.
Three content revenue streams in DeSoc you need to know about
DeSoc takes a different approach to monetization by offering a plethora of different options to monetize content, interactions, and audience. This includes:
- Creator tipping via tokens and stablecoins
- Non-fungible token (NFT) sales
- Audience subscriptions
- Premium content
- Transaction fees
- Third-party integrations
Popular DeSoc platforms include Lens Protocol, Farcaster, Minds, Steemit, and more. Meanwhile, popular Web2 platforms like Discord and Telegram are incorporating elements of Web3 DeSoc platforms.
In addition to ads, social graphs are a key revenue driver in the legacy social media (SoMe) space. However, this data monetization is not shared with content creators — at all.
At the same time, SoMe leaves you open to advertiser boycotts, demonetization, and even the banning of your channel — frequently without an explanation. With transparent rules, ownership, and decentralization, DeSoc platforms give their users more confidence that their accounts won’t randomly disappear one day.
1. DeSoc content revenues from tipping and microtransactions
In lieu of — or in addition to — a 👍 or a 💛 , you can be tipped 🫰 on most DeSoc platforms. Your followers can simply gift you some ETH, POL, or stablecoins if they like your video, post, or article.
This feature is nearly ubiquitous on DeSoc platforms. The key distinction is the currency of the tip. For example, Minds accepts both cryptocurrency and fiat currency.
Many DeSoc platforms only feature crypto tipping. Farcaster uses DEGEN as its platform-specific tipping token.
Farcaster also charges $0.01/post. These microtransactions prevent spam while driving DeSoc platform revenue. Depending on the platform, this revenue supports the DeSoc protocol and may also be shared with its creator economy.
Lens Protocol charges a 5% fee when users collect content like posts and comments, which is subsequently shared with the content creator.
2. NFT content revenue — how to make it
Popular NFTs have sold for millions of dollars. While these NFT sales were linked to artistic and/or speculative value, NFTs are expanding beyond digital art collectibles of “Punks” and “Apes.”
On many DeSoc platforms, creators earn revenue by creating and selling NFTs. Savvy users also earn revenue by buying NFTs and flipping them for a profit. Beyond this, platforms like Lens Protocol charge a 5% royalty fee so NFT creators continue to earn revenue as NFT ownership changes.
NFTs can give your audience access to exclusive token-gated content. This is akin to a premium subscription but leverages the power of blockchain technology. In addition to NFT-gated content on fully Web3 platforms, there are NFT-gating options on platforms like Discord and Telegram that incorporate blockchain-based features.
This enables creators to leverage Discord and Telegram’s large user bases while keeping the NFT monetization intact. In a novel application of NFTs, Onchain is launching its own utility NFT that will feature several token-gated perks.
3. Content revenues through third-party integrations
In addition to better monetization and data ownership, DeSoc platforms allow for in-platform integrations that are simply not permitted on centralized alternatives.
Farcaster is probably the most well-known DeSoc example for third-party integrations. Known as “Frames,” these integrations are decentralized applications (dApps) that can be run directly in the Farcaster news feed. This lets you to use dApps — and developers to monetize them — without the need to visit an external site.
Using dApps, users create NFTs, monetize videos, collect trading cards, and much more. Similarly, platform-based games leverage blockchain and Web3 to provide monetization opportunities. Referred to as Game Finance (GameFi), popular Telegram games like Hamster Kombat are an alternative to Web2 gaming consoles like Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation.
How lucrative are content revenue streams in DeSoc?
Content revenue streams can be very lucrative — or very meager. It depends. Top creators on Web2 social media earn millions, with popular Youtubers earning $10–20K/month from ad revenue alone.
For most DeSoc platforms, this sort of monthly creator revenue is not possible — yet. For example, the top Web3 creators on Lens Protocol have not yet earned $100K.
You can see that the far better Web3 revenue share doesn’t make up for the much smaller DeSoc user base compared to SoMe. While Web2 SoMe platforms typically take more than 50% of the revenue generated, a creator is able to monetize an audience of millions.
On the other hand, a talented Web3 creator may be able to keep 90% or more of the generated revenue. At the moment that means, they may only be monetizing content revenue streams on a platform with less than 100,000 users.
As DeSoc platforms grow bigger, so does the revenue potential. Content creators will increasingly be tempted to migrate from SoMe to DeSoc to take advantage of all the monetization options. As these DeSoc platforms scale, the ability to keep a higher percentage of revenue will incentivize creator onboarding to these open and transparent DeSoc alternatives.
New content business models or wishful thinking?
Some say that native blockchain-based DeSoc platforms will come to rule the social media landscape. Others say that Web2 platforms like Telegram and Discord will gobble up market share as hybrid Web2/3 behemoths. And then there are those that say DeSoc is a passing fad.
The Onchain Research Team conducted a comprehensive analysis of the DeSoc sector — and they don’t analyze passing trends. To understand why this Web3 sector matters, be sure to hop over to our extensive DeSoc research report on real-world business use cases for blockchain-compatible social media.