Social media has long been skewed in the favor of platform owners. Creators are controlled by algorithms and ad monetization, and consumers pay with their personal data. OnlyFans is owned by a single shareholder, billionaires are buying platforms, and creators are incentivized to sensationalize in order to earn. 

Simultaneously, creators are waking up to the misaligned incentives and finding more direct ways to make money and create connections. None of these platforms would exist without the creators. Vibhu Norby, co-founder of DRiP, has been thinking about this for 15 years, since his time as lead engineer at MySpace. 

Meeting friends and sharing passions is what the Internet is best for, according to Norby. He recalls now famous musicians walking the halls of MySpace’s Beverly Hills office and the excitement they had of being discovered on the platform. “You shouldn’t have to record videos of yourself dancing to the latest trends or chase the algorithm,” he said in a recent interview. “If you make something great, you should be found.”

Frustrated by the platforms that profit from the work of others through unbreakable network effects, Norby started experimenting with an NFT-based loyalty program at Solana Spaces, the Solana-focused retail stores he founded in New York and Miami that closed in Feb 2023. From his time in the direct-to-consumer movement, Norby came to realize that content is no different from products. 

But giving full ownership back to creators isn’t possible in the current Internet structure. This is where crypto comes in. 

Blockchain as the better base technology 

Norby’s creator platform, DRiP, enables creators and artists to send exclusive images, video, audio and other multimedia content to followers, who show their appreciation through tips. Tips (known as “thanks”) are cashed out as micropayments, leveraging Solana’s low cost per transaction. Think of “thanks” as likes. Top “thankers” get extra perks from the creator. 

DRiP can facilitate tipping as low as 1/10th of a cent. “There’s an artificial payment floor with fiat payments, as the payment processing costs make smaller transactions prohibitive,” Norby said. “On Solana, we can pay in real-time, in pennies – and it still makes economic sense.” 

At scale, these micro-payments add up to meaningful revenue that goes directly to the creator, not siphoned off by the platform. Payouts happen in USDC every 24 hours and there’s no minimum threshold. DRiP also holds auctions that allow creators to offer more exclusive pieces in a more traditional collecting context that can generate more revenue.

“Blockchain puts the economy in the term creator economy,” Norby said.  “It changes the value prop for every constituent. With digital ownership, consumers can keep what they pay for – rather than subscribe and not ever own anything.” 

Norby admits they’ve got their work cut out for them with DRiP. 

“Everything in web2 has melted together in this short-form video hell. Everything wants to be TikTok. It’s not easy to build distribution in consumer apps anymore,” he said. “There’s no way to get to a user’s contacts or access any social graph out of the big social networks, which control that data. Crypto provides a starting foundation but the audience that uses dApps is still quite small.”

Creators don’t need to worry about tokens, withdrawing or bridging money. By focusing on the creators, DRiP aims to bring fans into web3. 

Micropayments add stability

To date, DRiP creators have sent 175 million collectibles to two million wallets. 

The digital artist who goes by the moniker Sirius Crocodile said he wanted to earn crypto instead of buying it with fiat, and was attracted to the low-cost and ease of use on Solana. 

“DRiP’s incredibly large distribution model creates a very active platform and secondary market,” he said. The layers and different kinds of collectors on the site “makes it possible to build a more sustainable monetization plan,” he said. “The micropayments have created a much more stable stream of income for me.” 

Sistla Abishek, co-founder of Omniflix, an interoperable peer-to-peer network for creators to mint, manage and monetize NFTs, said there’s a lot of potential in micropayments and streaming payments, with tokens playing an important role. 

The infrastructure is now ready for consumer crypto apps to go mainstream, he said. Token streams can be modeled on subscriptions, with various metrics such as drops per month, total traded volume and video views, Abishek said. 

With the rise of web3 infrastructure, AI and DePIN, he believes we’ll see more dApps that aren’t just financial in nature also having their breakout moment. 

“Imagine if you had the ability to receive tokens while watching a live stream or stream tokens to the creator while watching a live stream,” Abishek said. “Once you move away from the live stream, the token stream also stops. This way, token streams can power live streams in a bi-directional manner.”

lead image: Vibhu Norby