Explaining stream2own, pricing, payouts

While I was looking at the Stream2own page, I noticed something. We’ve often illustrated stream2own by showing bars which keep doubling in size.

It struck me that this could give the impression that the price is increasing dramatically. Despite the initial payment being so small, the way we’re illustrating it feels expensive.

I took a swing at an alternate way of illustrating this – using a pie chart rather than a bar graph. Since the payments are all fractions of a whole, I feel that this puts better into perspective two things a reader needs to clearly understand:

  • that the initial payments are extremely cheap
  • that your 9 payments together form a complete purchase

My graphic design abilities are a dull knife these days, but I made this sketch to show what I’m picturing. @Timothee @melis_tailored

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Great. Much better! Could also overlay those pie segments on the corresponding blobs on the 9 plays grid graphic.

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Love a pie chart @Hakanto but we should do it from the artists payout perspective, starting at 1c per play, not the listeners.
then * it with *discovery listening starts at 0.0whatever it is…

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Yes… two sides of the same coin. We need both:
Including an explanation of how our business model allows us to combine affordable discovery of new music with Play Fair rewards to Artists.

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Hmm. Very true that we need to explain pricing to both listeners and artists on this page.

I’ve put my brain to it and it appears that a payouts pie chart from the artists’ perspective which treats the 1st play payout as 0.01 isn’t possible. While it is worth bragging about, the 1c per play policy is insurance that only kicks in when needed. Presented as our default model, it would misrepresent the basic idea of how our pricing and payouts work.

If we tell artists the 1st play payout is 0.01 and treat that as truth, then the 2nd and 3rd plays would be smaller payouts than the 1st play. The pie chart would have a big first piece, then two small pieces, and then get bigger again. This would misrepresent our pricing model both to artists and to listeners.

Stream2own artist payouts per play (70%)

in euro, approximate

0.00168
0.00336
0.00672
0.01344
0.02688
0.05376
0.10752
0.21504
0.43008

Here’s what I gather are the core goals of this page. Anything I’m missing or that you’d adjust @melis_tailored?

  • everyone’s a listener, so everyone should know the basics of how the stream2own listening model works
  • everyone should know that what listeners spend on resonate goes directly to the artists they listen to
  • artists should know that, of that money, the revenue is split 70% to the artist and 30% to the co-op
  • artists should know that the co-op has established a form of “insurance” which guarantees 1cent per play at the time of a payout
  • artists should know that this insurance will rarely be needed because the stream2own model generally makes artists significantly more per play than they would elsewhere
  • link to the Handbook, which will have detailed information about pricing and payouts

It’s my understanding that the 1c per play is policy now, it’s just that we haven’t announced it. It’s pretty straightforward to show a graphic of that from the artist perspective too, surely?

(The artist earnings display calc on the dashboard needs to be updated too.)

Yes, it’s already agreed the 1c per play and essential to communicate. The insurance side of it seems like overly complicating it - and @richjensen and i already spent many hours of deciding how best to communicate the difference between models.

We decided to get rid of the artist payment calculator for the sole reason that it confuses and also sets in stone something graphically that might be better explained with words.

If it’s the case that doing this pie chart will confuse things, i would prefer to get rid of it.

Paying 1 penny per play to artists is essential to our marketing strategy. It must be communicated loudly and clearly. I will also move this onto the front page text, it’s missing as it hadn’t been agreed by the board when I finished it.

To listeners - the message is that the coop subsidises low cost discovery.

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everyone’s a listener, so everyone should know the basics of how the stream2own listening model works 

yes
everyone should know that what listeners spend on resonate goes directly to the artists they listen to
yes
artists should know that, of that money, the revenue is split 70% to the artist and 30% to the co-op
yes
artists should know that the co-op has established a form of “insurance” which guarantees 1cent per play at the time of a payout
no
artists should know that this insurance will rarely be needed because the stream2own model generally makes artists significantly more per play than they would elsewhere
not really…
link to the Handbook, which will have detailed information about pricing and payouts
yes

… there’s another artist earnings display on the dashboard (not generally available yet) that shows unadjusted earnings, without a 1c/play minimum. Not a rush to do anything with it right now… Just for the backlog.

We should get rid of all artist earnings displays. The message is 1c up to 9 plays.

I hope it’s clear that I’m not speaking against the policy – I love it!

The co-op guaranteeing a 1c payout per play is amazing and we should absolutely highlight it. I think that is the key message – that we guarantee a 1c payout per play.

The potential for confusion is if we are trying to explain this while we are explaining that stream2own has prices that start below 1c and increase gradually. If the first play payout is said to equal 1c, then the idea of the prices increasing gradually from there becomes confusing to the listener.

Just keep these ideas separate from each other is what I’m suggesting. Stream2own pricing model is one thing, the payout guarantee is another thing.


Re: pie chart
The goal there was to explain our pricing model to listeners (which includes artists). I don’t think it can be adapted to explain our payouts, but I do think it would be helpful to listeners – or at least much clearer than a bar graph.

Yes, what I’m saying is that we don’t call it a payout guarantee or insurance. That’s confusing and needs more explanation.

We describe it as the co-op subs low cost discovery for listeners. So artists are guaranteed 1c per play, but listeners pay discovery rates the same as our competitors.

This is the language and explanation that’s been decided as being clearest here on the stream2own explanation page.

I like the pie chart - I would do it from the artist earning perspective though, not the listeners. Just with the *listeners pay 0.062 or whatever it is. The reason for that, is explained in the text.

Cross-post to an update of Sam’s listening cost calculator - trying to keep this thread up to date:

@Hakanto Is it possible to add a ‘new proposal’ tag to this, or the other thread?

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I think it would be clearest to make a new topic in the Lab, tag it #new-proposals, and clarify what exactly the proposal is. I think it will be hard for folks to discuss your proposal if it is within these other topics.

Ok, the main proposal at the link above is in community, new proposals, organizing-projects.

Does that mean it will be counted / considered?

For now, I’m filing all proposals into the Lab. If you could link me to the topic(s) you’re referring to, I’ll move/tag them accordingly

It’s the target link in the cross-post above. A reply to Sam.

It isn’t clear to me yet what the proposal is. Can you help me understand? I see the calculator, but what do you want to happen with it? How do you want to utilize it or implement it? Where do you want it to go?

As a start, I could add it to the stream2own guide in the Handbook

It’s just a proposal to build a listening cost calculator page. I updated Sam’s calculator spreadsheet with the correct (I hope) s2o logic and made it a bit easier to use. It’s also a mini spec for a web page ‘explainer’. Please look down the thread further replies to see the suggestion for dev work.

https://community.resonate.is/t/resonate-renewal-crowdfunding-campaign/2106/36?u=nick_m

The existing calc spreadsheet could be added to the handbook for internal use or for those comfortable with spreadsheets, but a simple web page calculator would be better for general site users.

Simply sticking the spreadsheet link in the web page isn’t acceptable IMHO

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