There is no shortage of innovative projects in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Stefan Thomas, best-known for running the Coil blockchain company and ties to RIpple, has a big plan. He aims to create a new grant for content creators looking to embrace the ad-free business model.
Banishing ads for Good
Over the past few years, there have been numerous companies looking for ways to disrupt online advertisements. That is much easier said than done, primarily because advertisements are the lifeblood of any online content creation platform. Especially news sites of any kind rely on advertisement revenue to pay their staff, among other things.
Even so, Coil is hoping to disrupt this business model in an intriguing manner. Stefan Thomas, who manages the company and is a former CTO at Ripple, is looking for ways to utilize blockchain technology to this end. Creating a $100m grant pool to award content creators who embrace the ad-free business model is one way of achieving this goal. Users deserve to be rewarded for browsing the internet, rather than being milked for all kinds of personal data when they are forced to view advertisements.
A Helping Hand
Launching such a major venture on one’s own accord is virtually impossible in this day and age. Even a blockchain startup like Coil can’t make it work without some help from partners. Thankfully, several companies see eye-to-eye when it comes to abolishing online advertisements once and for all. Mozilla and Creative Commons are the two announced partners to date, albeit more may be added over time. It is good to have such prominent members on board in the early stage.
These three parties have already created the fund, which goes by the name of Grant for the Web. The current plan of action is to slowly distribute the $100m in pooled funds over the next five years. Coil has been working on a way for internet users to support creators by sending tiny amounts of money through their browser. Without a large ecosystem, however, this technology will never be put through its proper paces. This is where Creative Commons and Mozilla come into the picture.
Competition for Brave?
A lot of people will immediately see parallels between what Coil aims to do and the Brave browser. That latter project has gotten a lot of attention, as it offers Basic Attention Token to content creators. Users are able to tip creators directly if they are verified publishers. Moreover, the Brave project will also reward users for viewing advertisements, or the user can have all ads blocked at no additional cost.
Even so, there is no reason to think these ecosystems will collide in any way. In fact, it is good to see more ventures being created which reward the end-user and content creator, rather than any middlemen being involved. In terms of building a sustainable internet for content creators, solutions like these show things can -and perhaps need to – be done differently.
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