Twitter embraces Bitcoin dividend users

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More businesses, countries and corporations are embracing bitcoin than ever before. Notably, Jack Dorsey recently announced that Twitter would allow users to tip other content writers on Twitter using bitcoin. This is good news because it shows another use case of bitcoin as a currency and brings the world closer to “hyperbitcoinization”. However, while it’s nice that Twitter makes it easy to donate bitcoin through its platform, it’s not enough. In keeping with Bitcoin’s philosophy, Twitter and other social media platforms should commit to paying all of their users a bitcoin dividend for using the site.

Twitter created its tip jar as a way to pay its content creators. It does this by allowing fans to tip their favorite content creators. Twitter is, however, a multi-billion dollar business whose value comes directly from selling its users’ data to advertisers. While most of us are aware of how Twitter and other social media sites monetize, we rarely see ourselves as the product Twitter is selling. We should also consider that social media companies are notorious for using predatory tactics to make their content more addicting and toxic, as evidenced by the recently leaked Instagram report. Because of this predatory environment designed to profit from our use, maybe all of us – influencers and regular users – should demand to be paid to create content. It’s time they started paying users, no matter how small, to create content. For upvotes, shares, and retweets, users could be paid in bitcoin in proportion to the engagement their posts bring to the website. The users are the unpaid workforce of these social media companies.

Many social media founders, for example Jack Dorsey, claim to embrace the philosophy of bitcoin. The ethics of decentralization is an integral part of this philosophy. This decentralization should apply to monetization for users.

Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat have dividend-type monetization programs for influencers where content creators receive a share of the advertising money that goes into the platforms. Of course, these monetization programs as they currently exist are somewhat elitist in the sense that there are rigid barriers to entry. I create content on YouTube. During the first year and month, I brought around 100,000 views and over 5,000 hours of viewing time to the platform, but still couldn’t monetize my content as YouTube’s requirements state that to do so part of their monetization program, you need 1,000 subscribers (I finally hit that number in July 2021 and started getting paid). TikTok and Snapchat are similar in their barriers to monetization. There are other platforms that pay content creators in various cryptocurrencies to create content, but they lack scale and none are bitcoin-only.

Now, does it sound ambitious to think that companies like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook would pay us to use their social media? Yes. However, it’s important to start thinking about what this world would look like once we get to hyperbitcoinization. It is a world in the vein of John F. Kennedy’s Moonshot mission, a world of forward thinking, fairness and optimism. In this world, bitcoin would be a borderless, unlicensed, censorship-resistant form of primary currency and there would be drastic changes in the way we operate.

When YouTube first started paying its content creators, few would have anticipated the creator economy as it is today, with thousands of people making careers on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and other platforms. By extending bitcoin dividend payments to their unpaid workforce, social media companies would help facilitate the adoption of a borderless, unlicensed, censorship-resistant form of global currency. If a noticeable number of influential content creators started demanding the dividend, social media companies would be forced to heed those demands. The economy of creators has far more power than it thinks, and the demands placed on platforms that empower them to act can have a big influence. Considering the simultaneous fear of AI taking over many jobs and the growth of the creator economy, perhaps the bitcoin dividend doesn’t just make sense, it’s imminent!

This is a guest article by Jacob Kozhipatt. The opinions expressed are entirely theirs and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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