It seems unlikely that the value of each user contribution will ever increase to the point that it creates a critical mass which threatens the “user-generated” model. Sites like YouTube thrive on the long tail and that will only continue to grow. The tail may get longer but it will never get fatter… there will always be an abundance of content that for a variety of reasons never commands any cash at all and is only valuable when aggregated with other content like it.

If something reaches a level of popularity that it can draw enough attention to make cash and has monetary value in and of itself, then it no longer needs the support of the “YouTube” model… it (or more precisely its creator) can stand on its own two feet. At that point it becomes feasible to start pulling traffic off the UGC site and on to a site that is more closely controlled.

As professional producers of content for the internet (www.desk-trainer.com) we certainly are aware of the difficulties of getting people to pay for content over the web, even when they tried it for free and liked it.

But how else does one provide real production value?

Presumably in that case, the revenues would come from advertising controlled by the provider. Since it wouldn’t be direct income from the item of content, it would be hard to separate that out from the use of the total facilities and probably protected by clauses in the agreement.

In other words, although the creator retains copyright, s/he can only benefit from direct income, which would only accrue if the creator owned the platform. So, when a content creator gets professional, they will move to their own domains. Otherwise courts will rightly regard them as amateurs.

I can’t see how anyone signing up to a free service can lay claim to a share in the revenues.

I think we’re in agreement that most people are not seeking monetization and derive fair and sufficient value from “creating content” on the services that they use (Nick also conceded that). We’re also in agreement that services like Revver that offer the monetization option haven’t really taken off yet.

Given that, the notion of exploitation may be more nascent than actual — it becomes actual when the value of the content people are producing through their use of services becomes sufficiently high that they would be interested in the cash compensation — which doesn’t mean they lose interest in the attention and social value. Even then, the risk of exploitation is probably limited to a much more narrow slice of people who have might have an interest in professionalizing what they’ve been doing casually.

All said, it’s all still (rapidly) evolving — 2007 may determine whether this is really an issue in the near term.

Mark,

2007 may be the year when the law starts having to catch up with reality — I think the scenario you describe will inevitably happen, which is what will start to wake people up to this issue. The first instances may or may not land in court, but it seems unavoidable that one will eventually.

If someone offers a fee service and others choose to use it on the terms offered, why should they expect a paycheck too? In any field there are 5pc who succeed, while the rest play around and come and go. If we question the rewards of the 5pc, there’ll be nothing left to play around with.

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant. I agree that users may be “ignorant” of what their participation means to the various sites, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get value out of using them. That’s why they’re using them… and there’s nothing stopping them from leaving.

If it really is monetization that they’re after than alternatives will spring up (witness things like Netscape and Revver). However, so far, it seems that neither has really caught on that much, despite the hype. That’s because the value to users is still in the attention they get from the much larger audiences at the other ones.

I have nothing against cash compensation coming into this world. I’m just saying that it’s silly to think that these users are being exploited in any way.