Why an Onlyfans type of content subscription option is the future of the music business
Content creators, in this case music artists only get at best 0.004¢ for every time their music streams. That number certainly adds up when those streams rack up. This is called that the long tail in Marketing. Streaming is crucial, essential for the survival of artists. It is no longer unheard of for artists to gain billion of streams for their work, with the likes of Drake, Justin Bieber clocking tens of billions of streams respectively.
Whilst that works for the more established artists with record label machines behind them pumping in the resources for them to stay atop the ever-increasing noise of new content churning in every millisecond on these platforms. It’s no wonder these record labels get a chunk of the revenue when that comes in.
This has led to MPs examining the economic impact that music streaming is having on artists, record labels and the wider music industry. “While streaming is a growing and important part of the music industry contributing billions to global wealth, its success cannot come at the expense of talented and lesser-known artists,” DCMS Committee Chair Julian Knight MP said.
“We’re asking whether the business models used by major streaming platforms are fair to the writers and performers who provide the material. Longer-term we’re looking at whether the economics of streaming could in future limit the range of artists and music that we’re all able to enjoy today.” He further added.
To be perfectly fair; the fault of low revenue cut for artists and performers does not entirely rest on the shoulders of the streaming platforms, put it quite frankly; they just cannot sustainably increase pay out, without significantly raising the price they charge fans. This sustainability issue is also what Netflix is facing and the primary reason why they keep increasing their subscription fees. When you charge one base albeit affordable fee in a marketplace situation, especially where you are leasing on someone else’s asset, the economies of scales plateau at some point, leaving you unable to maximize returns for the asset owner without significantly upsetting the subscriber at the other end with a price hike.
Onlyfans found a way around that issue. No one would really imagine them as a streaming service, although that is exactly what they are. They allow their clients, the content creators to set prices for their asset hosted on their platform to audiences who pay, sometimes handsomely for that privilege. This is why it works so well, so much so it is the content creators championing the platform with its business model.
It works so well because it is the content creators who set their prices. We all know what they say, “sex sells”. With audiences paying for content that ranges from risqué to flat out porn, it gives the content creator the power to be the architects of their financial destiny.
We see that same future sweeping through the rest of streaming industry. We know artists wish to go back to the golden days of physical copies where each copy sold more. Thus, they potentially made more per copy. Whilst that era is a much bygone one, we see a way of bringing that model back to today’s method.
We saw Disney + trial this subscription per content method with their cinematic offering, creating a limited time period premium pricing for exclusive access to a movie that had there not been the COVID-19 crisis, audiences would be lining up in the cinema to watch. They also charged a price that was not very much far off what they would charge for a cinema ticket. Whether it worked or not remains to be seen in their annual statement.
One thing that is clear however is that for this model to work, there must be tremendous value to the consumer to pay a premium subscription per artist or per content.
London based PRYNTD, just like Onlyfans, believes they have the winning formula to bring artist driven content subscription to the masses.
PRYNTD is an immersive (think augmented and virtual reality) universe of on-demand and live-streaming content with haptic support, created by artists for audiences to access on their smartphones, tablets, computers, AR/VR devices. What makes this a very viable option to push the artist led subscription model is the value it creates for the content creators and audiences.
The way it works is converting artists’ 2d on-demand and live-streaming content to immersive in real time.
Augmented reality experiences are overlaid on physical markers like printed images for example on magazines, billboards, business cards, geo-location targets etc.
For Virtual Reality experiences, Videos and live streams can be viewed on site using the preferred device of the audience user or with a VR headset.
The best part of the platform is that it doesn’t require creators and audiences to download any app, taking up space on their devices. It uses the existing features on the user’s device like their native browsers, camera, orientation and motion sensing, only seeking access and using device permission per session.
In a time like this, with lockdown restrictions, where artists can’t tour, perform gigs, and rely heavily on their streaming revenues, it is the best chance to provide them the unique opportunity to perform virtual gigs and showcase their content in innovative ways.
While there is a company currently dominating the virtual gig space with their VR live streams, what PRYNTD offers is unique in its delivery. For one, it allows the content creator to combine their immersive on-demand with live-streams in their offering. At the moment VR content is usually recorded using VR, 360, 180 cameras. This is the number one barrier to creators and audiences embracing the immersive streaming medium. It is expensive, resource intensive and time consuming to create VR content this way. PRYNTD changes this by being the first with its unique proprietary algorithm to convert 2d content to AR/VR in real time.
Secondly, PRYNTD live-streaming offering, while it allows flexibility of the artists to stream their live socials — Instagram live, YouTube live, Twitter live, Twitch, Facebook live simultaneously, where it really shines is how it converts Mpeg-dash and HLS live streams into 360 VR in real time. These are the formats broadcasters use to create and disseminate their live feed using encoders like Akamai, OBS, Streamlabs and many more. That means the artists is offering more value to the fans, they were already paying tens of pounds for gigs and festival tickets of their favourite artists, it is the same logic transferred to a virtual medium.
Content creators on PRYNTD have the ability to create unlimited subscription and membership options for their audiences.
This covers on-demand content, live-streams whether immersive or 2D, tickets, merchandise, combination items, collectibles and many more.
The logic is to create unlimited monetisation avenues through the platform for content creators with their fans.
Memberships can be one off payments, monthly recurring subscriptions or a combination of both. It can also be time limited for instance, for hours, days, weeks, monthly or yearly.
Memberships and subscriptions also work with real world experiences for instance as tickets to a show, appointments and discounts and special offers.
According to the Founder Berne Omolafe, “Immersive Streaming is certainly the next frontier of entertainment, with Facebook perfecting the Oculus VR headsets with every iteration, Microsoft doubling down their efforts with the Hololens, Apple adding Lidar to their 2020 iPad pro and iPhone 12 for depth sensing, bolstering their vision for AR, improving with every new release, and their purchase of NextVR, paying $100m. MelodyVR buying Napster and creating incredible VR live-streaming experiences, Teslasuit releasing the mind blowing haptic suits. The space is getting superbly interesting.
Monetising it effectively for content creators, who have so far never been able to justify viability and feasibility of creating content for the medium would be key to drive the innovation forward, create sufficient content library for audiences to embrace the vertical and the space to reach its utmost potential. PRYNTD does just this. Therefore, we believe we are well positioned in a pivotal role with our converged offering to bring the needs of the creators and the desires of the audiences together. The future is already PRYNTD.
It is easy to sign up as an artist or audience on the PRYNTD, go to Pryntd.xyz/login to enjoy immersive entertainment now”.