it is a common knowledge that bitcoin and digital currencies allow a new kind of payment experience, thanks to microtransactions.
In fact, if credit cards, bank transfers and other traditional methods of payment are difficult to manage and have high fees, bitcoin simplifies any transfer of value, as you only need a wallet and an email address.
also, thanks to its eight decimals, bitcoin allows microtransactions and lower fees.
this is the main reason why bitcoin is called the internet of money and is very useful to pay for online content, such as images, articles and music.
sending tips through paymeabit
when you read an interesting and insightful piece of content on facebook or instagram all you can do is leave a “like” or a comment. but you cannot give a tip to the author.
all the contents can be shared for free without any reward for the creator.
to solve this “incorrect” behavior, back in 2004 italian entrepreneurs mauro pili, sergio masala and nando oggiano created paymeabit, a new social network where everything has a value in bit, a very small fraction of bitcoin.
paymeabit was the only one italian startup to be awarded by nexuslab, a blockchain-related platform that provides business coaching services and consulting.
behind the company name, of course, there is a funny word pun referred to a little payment “a bit” and the Bitcoin fraction called “bit”.
The paymeabit platform allows users to create contents or share them and receive a “bit” (its value is less than a cent, at the moment) instead of a simple “like” on facebook; likewise steemit which is leading in that space.
Of course the main question we asked ourselves was: Why would a user pay for contents that can be found for free?
we asked this to Luigi Angotzi, growth hacker at paymebit.
“the analysis we did showed that online contents can be divided into two main categories: news and general information, which are abundant on the Internet, free of charge, and for which users are not willing to pay.
however, there is a second category of contents: insights, analysis, responses to particular needs that users are willing to pay as long as the amounts are reasonably low, and solve specific needs.
paymeabit wants to allow users to offer such contents through an easy platform, where - in addition to the “buying" option - may also be present a small tip. Offering the possibility of sending tips and leaving comments in the same way, we got to see how value transfers become easy and generate a stream of micropayments among users who are both consumers and content creators”.
collectively, user-generated content has created billions of dollars worth of value for the shareholders of social media companies, such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. Steem supports social media and online communities by returning much of its value to the people who provide contributions by rewarding them with virtual currency. that is why the are the much talked about socia media in space right now cause they retuturn value to people who participate time or money to the platform.
Decentralized sharing platform: LBRY vs YouTube
Speaking about decentralized sharing platforms, it is impossible not to mention LBRY, founded back in 2004 by Jeremy Kauffman and Jimmy Kiselak.
On the LBRY open source platform you can share, read and hear contents with the possibility to monetize your online creations, as it is a digital marketplace controlled by users, similar to Megaupload and BitTorrent.
Similar also to YouTube, LBRY however doesn’t allow third-party advertising or pre-rolls and you can buy content or watch it for free, as decided by the authors.