Legacy Vs Crypto Social Media - Why Brave Matters
I want to start this article by giving a huge thank you to the Brave browser as well as the anonymous user who sponsored my very first tip on my YouTube channel. I think it's incredible that Brave is allowing users to earn cryptocurrency from publishing on traditional social media platforms. Of course, many of us know that we can earn from using cryptocurrency websites such a Steemit, Publish0x, Uptrennd, Minds, etc, but the ability to earn cryptocurrency on a legacy platform is quite revolutionary.
Content Creator’s Dilemma
Broadly speaking, there are two different categories of social media platforms. We have legacy platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and others. On the other hand, we have cryptocurrency, blockchain-based social media platforms such as Steemit, Minds, Uptrennd, Publixsh0x, and others. Each of these different categories has different things to offer both creators and viewers of content.
Obviously, we know the disadvantages of traditional social media platforms. They abuse users' privacy, sell their data, and offer very little rewards for actually creating the content. To be fair though, we also have to admit that there are huge potential user bases on traditional platforms, they are generally easier to use, and less “buggy.” At the same time, I think we can all agree that blockchain-based, cryptocurrency-focused social media platforms do a much better job of protecting users' privacy, rewarding content creation, and resisting censorship. In all fairness, I think we should also admit that there are significantly fewer users on crypto-based social media platforms and that there is a narrower range of content on crypto social media. This smaller user base and limited range of topics on crypto social media sites can be a problem for niche content creators.
User Base Matters
Two of the social media sites that I used the most are Uptrennd and Publish0x. Uptrennd limits topics to blockchain and crypto topics. Publish0x allows users to create whatever type of content they want, but I have noticed that authors who write about anything other than technology/cryptos/blockchain struggle to make decent tips. This isn’t a complaint about Publish0x or Uptrennd. Rather, I'm trying to point out that most crypto-based social media platforms are not just social media platforms that happen to reward users with crypto. They are social media platforms about crypto.
This is perfectly fine for users and content creators like me who write most of their articles about cryptocurrency or technology. It gives us an easy way to earn crypto while sharing our message and building an audience. At the same time, the lack of “topic diversity” can difficult for a content creator that streams gaming matches, teaches baking, or writes poetry. Content creators who focus on anything other than cryptocurrency or technology can have a hard time earning rewards on crypto-based social media platforms. That's why I think Brave is so revolutionary and so appealing. Brave allows creators to leverage the large audiences of legacy social media platforms while also facilitating monetization through the Brave Creator program.
Let's be honest, there is a huge user base on traditional social media platforms. Publish0x currently has just over 30,000 users, and Uptrennd just broke 50,000 recently. These are both impressive statistics, but YouTube has over 2 billion users per month, and Facebook has over 1.5 billion. It is inevitable that these larger user bases support a wider range of interests.
Let’s suppose that you are a content creator that specializes in a very niche category and you make videos about oil and gluten-free, vegan cooking. That is an incredibly specific niche. First, you would have to find an audience that is interested in cooking. Obviously, your audience would also be limited to vegans. Even after you had found a vegan cooking audience, you would further narrow down that audience to people who were gluten intolerant. As restricted and narrow as this category is, there are countless videos on YouTube that have hundreds of thousands of used specifically describing oil and gluten-free vegan cooking recipes. This would be much harder on a platform that only has 30K viewers instead of 2 Billion.
The high number of views on such niche topics is only possible because there is such an immense user base on YouTube and other traditional social media sites. When almost a third of the world's population uses a single site, it's very easy for content creators to find and target a niche audience. as much as I love cryptocurrency-based social media platforms, they simply don't have enough users (yet) to support niche content creators.
This is where the Brave browser saves the day. Brave enables creators to earn cryptocurrency while still using legacy social media platforms. It is an invaluable asset because it allows users and content creators to earn cryptocurrency and be rewarded for their efforts while using their existing social media platforms and their existing audience. Creators don’t have to abandon the platforms that they have worked so hard to build a reputation on. They don’t have to learn how to use a new blockchain social media platform with a sometimes buggy interface and complex private posting keys. We know that simplicity and ease of use is the #1 requirement for mass adoption, and Brave makes it easy for creators to earn and be rewarded for their content using the channels and platforms that they are already familiar with.
Conclusion
Obviously, Brave doesn't solve every single problem. Creators who use legacy platforms like YouTube still have to contend with seemingly arbitrary censorship policies, the possibility of being de-platformed, and algorithmic manipulation. I believe these problems can only be solved by using fully-fledged, cryptocurrency and blockchain-based social media platforms, and I do think all content creators should be expanding their presence on these platforms in addition to their legacy platforms. That being said, Brave does solve one of the most glaring issues which is that content creators on many legacy platforms are not being rewarded for their efforts. Brave isn’t the complete solution, but it is the bridge that will allow content creators to reap the rewards from legacy platforms while they wait for sufficient audiences to develop on true crypto/blockchain social media platforms.
▶️ DTube
▶️ YouTube