One major thing that holds me back from many platforms & ideas is the fact of knowing that I won't be able to earn much from it. No, earning isn't the major reason I want to create content, but it is my time I'm spending & time doesn't pay the bills or put food on the table. With pretty much everything, the bigger you are, the more you earn. Large YouTube channels have a huge audience that will definitely buy merch & other products, plus they get tons of views that get tons of ad revenues. Decentralization is supposed to fix this & make it possible for anyone to earn a legitimate, significant income but there are problems even here.

Let's look at Steem. You can earn the token, sure, but the larger you are, the more you earn. Since you can buy into the token, the wealthy who want to capitalize on it can do so with very little overall risk. This creates whales. Honestly, I hate that term & please understand that not all are bad. There are happy swimming whales like Glitterfart on Steem who are just awesome people and who do help out the smaller guys. I just think that the system is at fault with how it runs if it creates them. People complain about YouTube making it difficult for smaller creators to earn anything, which is true, so those small creators go elsewhere where they can earn pennies. But of course, you have to hold those pennies so that you have even more earning potential because of them. This earning potential builds up very slowly & you still basically earn nothing, no different from being on a platform that suppresses your earnings. Some may be okay with this, justifying it by saying "Well I wasn't getting anything there anyway, but here at least it's something. Even if it takes a long time, at least I'm getting something."

We need a system with a native token that can only be used on the platform that you cannot buy into in any way. Maybe this token, when someone reaches a certain threshold, it will automatically be traded out for another withdrawable currency. No holding, but even if you do hold it, it should not give extra benefits. This platform should not allow censoring or downvoting so that content can be suppressed. There needs to a reporting system in place to prevent spam & garbage content. Let's be real, we don't want someone making an entire post that's just "hi" and earning $10 off it, repeating daily, just because they can. But downvoters can cause huge harm if they're able to suppress content just because they want to be jerks. New content should be prominently featured & content should be rewarded based on a fair system. Views is good, interaction is better, sharing it should increase rewards as well. There should be no limits on things, but spam still needs to be avoided or at least not rewarded.

Effort should be rewarded. Time spent should be rewarded. Anyone anywhere should be able to earn for their passions & they should all have equal opportunity. No more more=more.

There are a couple platforms that I know of & use that heading toward this kind of change. Publish0x which I highly recommend & Cent which I also highly recommend. Both platforms are unique in their own ways & don't reward holding tokens, nor do they even have their own native token. This is a good thing, honestly.

Publish0x is great because you can keep earning tips on your content long after it's been published & no one has to spend any of their own currency to tip the author. In fact, the reader can earn a portion of the tip for their time spent reading. Pretty good system. The only problem I see with it in regards to what I stated above is that the tips are rather small. Of course, this makes sense, you can't have someone earning $10 from a single tip, that might be too much. This unfortunately leads to the bigger the audience/viewing/promotion=more tips/earnings. There is also a limit to how many times you can tip per day which leads to reading less content (not inherently bad). Thankfully, there is no limit (that I know of) to how many times you can be tipped per day. Still, at the very base, Publish0x makes it possible for anyone to earn, earn a large amount & doesn't reward those with deeper pockets, natively on the platform. I am excited to see where Publish0x goes in the future!

Cent is awesome because again, you can earn forever on your content & there is incentive to tip others as well. You can even earn by sorting comments on bounty posts, but that won't earn you much at all. Cent seems to be more of a generosity type system, which is quite unique. You do need to use your own funds for tipping, but by tipping, it is possible to earn back. The economy seems to be more recyclable. You get tipped a bit, then you give tip or offer a bounty. Win a bounty, offer it back. Of course, it's all at each user's discretion whether or not to do such a thing. The important thing here is that engagement is what matters most. Simply commenting may not get you anything, but it is possible. Low quality comments or spam comments will likely not be rewarded, however it is possible as it is up to each user's discretion. Cent is also poised to be making some changes here in the near future & I cannot wait to see what's in store!

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts & if you know of other platforms that are worthwhile to check out!