Proposal for BlockTu.be

[kingflurkel]

Before you read further: this is a draft document that might lead to a proposal in the future. All your input, feedback and questions are welcome.

Temp site: http://blocktube.bitballoon.com/
Chat: https://gitter.im/BlockTube/

Hereby our first draft / sketch for a new proposal: ßlockTu.be.
It's a video community, where uploaders, farmers and viewers can exchange 'likes' (blocktube tokens).
When somebody uploads a new video, a clip contract is created. The uploader can set parameters for the number of shares he wants to keep, the reward for the farmer, and the threshold of likes. Before the threshold is reached, each like will be exchanged for clip shares. When the threshold has been met, 'likes' are distributed over the clipshare holders.

The uploader
Uploading video to blocktube will cost a variable amount of blocktube tokens. These tokens are used to reward the farmers, who will create different versions of the video and serve the content on the IPFS network. Upload cost will be variable; those who follow the rules of the community will pay a low price, but uploaders who fi. "forget" to flag their content as nsfw will be punished and will have to pay a higher upload price in the future. Short: the upload price varies depending on your reputation. (see flagging below)

The Farmer:
The farmer runs a desktop app. The app watches for new uploads. It downloads the original uploaded file, and converts this into the formats needed for blocktube playback (4K, 1080p, 720p, mobile...). When the conversion is done, the original uploader can validate the versions. In doing so, the farmer also gets clipshares.
The farmer app contains ffmpeg, ipfs and web3js.

The "proposals"
Creators can pitch ideas for scenario's, series, pilots... The blocktube community can invest blocktube tokens, getting a share of the video. This would allow for direct funding of creatives.

The flagging
We use the same strategy a prediction market like Augur uses.
So when the viewer flags a video as inappropriate for children, or flags it as copyright infringement, the viewer actually gets a share in that flag. When a certain treshold of flags is reached, the flag is permanent and the flagger gets rewarded.
(This triggers the reputation of the uploader to go down, thus rising the price of the upload).
So basically you bet on the question "will the community find this video child friendly or not",
The app allows a parent to set up a passcode, thus locking the flag settings for children, or people who think copyright is important.

We are working on a proof-of-concept at https://github.com/BlockTube
It uses IPFS for file storage and an ethereum node + web3js.
And of course a bunch of smart contracts on Ethereum.
Front end is Polymer web components.

We are looking for developer help and of course input and feedback on our idea.

Cheers DAO Community!

kingflurkel and sponnet

[yeungsammy2002]

This proposal actually wants to decentralize YOUTUBE......hahaha....Funny

[thecryptofiend]

Why create your own tokens? Wouldn't it make more sense to use ETHER? Particularly if you want to DAO involvement.

[kingflurkel]

Why create your own tokens?
Same reasons as why we have DAO tokens > Blocktube is a dao, the community's value creation should be expressed in its own medium, the blocktube token. The token will be traded, eg. by farmers earning blocktube tokens.

Wouldn't it make more sense to use ETHER?
No, as we explicitly want to decouple the value within the community from any other currency.

Particularly if you want to DAO involvement.
Could you explain what you mean? I will answer to what I think your question was:
We will propose to the DAO to help us developing Blocktube. In return the DAO would get blocktube tokens (shares), or a share in the value creation (to be discussed of course).

[thecryptofiend]

Your argument doesn't make sense. If Blocktube is a DAO why doesn't it fund itself? Also there are multiple cryptocurrencies already in existence that fulfil the same role as your Blocktube tokens.

There is no equivalent for DAO tokens so to compare the two shows a distinct lack of knowledge or a deliberate fudging of the issue.

Essentially you are trying to create a decentralised Youtube which runs on tokens. It is not a DAO in the sense of this DAO.

Since you want funding from this DAO it would make sense to take funding in Ether and base any currency on the ethereum blockchain.

What would be the point of creating yet another separate cryptocurrency which itself needs to be mined?

What features of Blocktube require this that a simple token would not fulfill? It sounds more like a self enrichment vehicle in the vein of all the unnecessary altcoins from 2014.

Take one established idea (Youtube) + attach altcoin = get rich.

Those 2014 tactics won't work anymore you have to offer something new. At present this seems like a get rich quick scheme.

[Kapa]

Do your research and d&d

[kingflurkel]

I think we have a misunderstanding here Of course the token is a token contract on Ethereum, it's not a new cryptocurrency.
Get rich quick scheme:
We don't have the intention of keeping all the blocktube tokens for ourselves, that would be really stupid.
The tokens are minted by the users and the farmers.

We could do it without DAO funding, we just thought it could be an interesting case to be made.

[mirsind]

i think I get your Idea, similar to akasha.world who wants to dezentralise facebook , so akasha I would vote for 5mio , if they ask the dao. so for you i recommend to make a proposal for 1-2 mio , then you have already one 'yes'

[thecryptofiend]

How would a token on the Ethereum blockchain be mineable though? That doesn't make sense.

[islander777]

BlockTu.be - decentralised, censorship free video community...

I haven't read further, sorry.
It is the proposals like this one I am, as an investor in DAO, totally scared of... Ambitious ideas which require huge finances without 'common sense' business plans..

Do you realise that the main competitor will be google's Youtube? How this product is going to compete - how it will do things differently/better than Youtube, so enough (a billion) people would want to switch? Me for example - I'm totally 100% happy with youtube - fantastic platform. Not much to improve.
One more question - do you realise that Youtube, even after 10 years of operating under Google is still not making any profit? That's it - expenses are much higher than the income from ads.

This proposal is perfect if you want to kill DAO. Maybe in distant future yes, when DAO handles tens or hundreds billions of dollars it will be a great idea, but not now.

On the other hand, a decentralised social network community, like Synereo project would make much more financial sense. It's much cheaper to develop and implement and it can easily compete with Facebook too, as many people hate fb for its censorship etc.

In terms of investments in large projects, $100mil is not very huge, so we have to be very careful which projects the DAO can afford to support and invest in.

[kingflurkel]

It's MINT-able, not MINE-able.

[kingflurkel]

I haven't read further, sorry.

Maybe you should read further, and make a case against what we propose instead of argue on what you think we propose.

[islander777]

Maybe you should read further, and make a case against what we propose instead of argue on what you think we propose.

I do apologise - you are right - I should not have made a judgement without reading full post.

so I've read it now. same questions remain:
- why do you believe this service will/can become more popular than for example youtube?
- how are you going to cover the expenses (setting up videohosting/sharing business is very expensive and $10-30mil of funding you can get from DAO is nothing here, imo)
- how do you think this business model will be profitable in general? (if youtube, for example, still operates at a loss after 10 years of being video sharing site #1)
- what is the profit structure/potential return on investment for the DAO in particular?

Thanks in advance for the answers.
p.s. I just feel that such a project is too big too risky for the dao (at least for now. maybe when 1eth cost $500 it will be a different story, but for now...) but Im still interested to hear the answers as well as other opinions. thanks

[sponnet]

Some remarks on the expenses:
- IPFS will be used to share the video's , meaning no video hosting is required. More popular video's will become more manifest in the IPFS network which makes them faster to load / view and share.
- IPFSjs (https://github.com/ipfs/js-ipfs) will probably make it possible to run all this from a browser - requiring no extra software.
- Transcoding of raw video's ( from IPFS to IPFS ) will be rewarded with blocktube tokens. The transcoding miner software could be bundled as a seperate download for anyone that is interested in making blocktube tokens.

Stefaan

[kingflurkel]

why do you believe this service will/can become more popular than for example youtube?
Because people will be able to create and exchange value, without a central authority. The way 'likes' are distributed and gained incentives users to upload new content, discover and promote new content.
Also, since there's no censorship, the range of video content will be much bigger than what youtube can offer.
Frankly speaking, you will also be able to see 'popcorntime' content.

how are you going to cover the expenses (setting up videohosting/sharing business is very expensive and $10-30mil of funding you can get from DAO is nothing here, imo)
We will use IPFS, the interplanetary file system, for data distribution and storage. So no central servers.
Also, we will develop a desktop app that 'farms' the uploads (make different versions of it) and share the content on the IPFS node.
Farmers will be rewarded for creating versions, and 'sharing' the content on their IPFS node / farmer app.

how do you think this business model will be profitable in general? (if youtube, for example, still operates at a loss after 10 years of being video sharing site #1)
It's not about being profitable, it's about creating value. People participating in the community will be able to create value (collect tokens). How these tokens will be traded is something we can't foresee or control.
Also, we aren't in this to make profits or 'get rich quick', we want to create blocktube... just because we can.
We are here discussing blocktube to find developers, interested first users, and people like yourself with whom we can discuss the idea, and finetune it.

- what is the profit structure/potential return on investment for the DAO in particular?
That's something the community should discuss / vote on. We are looking for a couple of developers to speed up the process (we're only two devs now). We also need some eth funding to allow our users to interact with the smart contracts. But all and all we're not asking for millions of dollars but for enough funding that would enable a team of 5 developers to work on it for one year.

p.s. I just feel that such a project is too big too risky for the dao (at least for now. maybe when 1eth cost $500 it will be a different story, but for now...) but Im still interested to hear the answers as well as other opinions. thanks
I see why you would think that this is a very big and risky project. If you leave out ethereum, ipfs, and other recent tech, it would be impossible to do this project. However, if you do 'video community' in a truly decentralised way, with the right tech (IPFS/Ethereum/...) with an economic model that incentives people to use it and interact with it, you can build it very efficient and 'cost effective'. We also have a working prototype, proving that our idea is at least technically viable and scalable without further efforts.

[islander777]

thanks for the detailed explanation. its all much clearer now and sounds like not a bad idea at all.
p.s. I wasnt aware of that IPFS thing, as I live on an island with limited inet traffic but thats just me.

[kingflurkel]

Your reply forces us to think hard and critical about what we are proposing, thank you for that.
The hard thing about this brave new world is not developing ideas and executing them, it's communicating these ideas to a broad audience.
Cheers,

KF

[Kapa]

it's an ok idea but needs lots of work.

[yeungsammy2002]

Could you calculate the actual total cost of your proposed project?

[snowy13]

What I see here is a proposal to ponder on for the future. This falls in the paradigm of "commons based peer production", where the community creating the content has ownership of the commons and no single entity like youtube controls the market. Decentralized storage and the blockchain will be the infrastructure of this future collaborative economy. The "minted" tokens can be the non exchangeable reputation that enables your actions within the community, they are yours to keep and non destructable. Decoupling these economic signals from market currencies makes total sense as you avoid extrinsic motivational factors we see today where "money" is the only currency for value exchange.
What is important here is that these reputation tokens can be used interoperably within a blockchain infrastructure, unlike today's siloed systems like where your ebay merchant reputation cannot be transferred to another platform.
The proposal is a great one, too early in my opinion as the old economy holds all the capital. The idea should not be "invest in the new economy to expect an ROI", rather transfer your capital to maintain it instead of risking losing more of it as the old economy dies...