One problem is that many people don't have bitcoin even if it is the best way to pay. Many people are uncomfortable buying bitcoins.
Amazon micropayment service lets you pay with credit card transaction anywhere from $0.05 to $9.99 with a 5% + .05 cent transaction fee. Which isn't as good as bitcoin but it is still pretty good as far as credit card fees go.
https://payments.amazon.com/help/Amazon-Flexible-Payments-Se...
Many small micro-payments can really add up. This can be huge for content creators. I would really like to give tips to people who create educational science videos, open source software, open source hardware, write detailed tutorials for hardware and software projects, take the time to help me on forums, etc. Many content creators on the internet have helped me. I might not want to give a lot to each but I can give a small tip. Which can still make a difference to the creator if many people also do the same.
I think if they charged a fee for the tip it would be a more standard business model and people would not find it as exciting. It seems more direct to customer this way without the man in the middle dilemma for content creators. Also charging a fee in addition to the transaction fee would make it increasingly difficult to tip the creator a small amount. I think the fact they don't charge a fee on top of the transaction fee is out of necessity.
We plan to launch with only Bitcoins, and shortly thereafter add on credit card payments to go more mainstream.
Our mission is to enable anyone to tip any creator anywhere in the world - so educational content and others are definitely included in this! Music is just the starting point.
We also have to look at a future where an artist like Justin Bieber could put up a BTC address on his Twitter profile. Taking a cut means the artist has a small reason to not want to sign up ("they take 1%-2%. I'm better off just sticking a BTC address on my Facebook").
I disagree with this - Bitcoiners have been quite generous with tipping in the past, and it's been picking up again thanks to the ability to tip millionths of a bitcoin (informally called "bits") using ChangeTip.
The best you could do is purchase music from the musician though the least-fee-laden service available, so they get the most money legally possible.
It would be just as useful for authors and movie studios.
As for getting the money to them, that's the question I want answered. I had conceived it as pledges rather than donations. I think people are more likely to pledge than they are to donate, which would get the service started a lot faster (and not problematic as long as you provide cc/banking/bitcoin details so that pledges are automatically deducted). Artists could then be contacted and told to claim their pledged donations.
2. Dogecoin is a must - shouldn't be too hard if you have Bitcoin already. The communities are very different.
3. Services like Tinkercoin allow you to buy a small amount of Bitcoin with credit card. Consider adding this info for the fans to get a small amount of Bitcoins.
4. There are some musicians in the space who are big into Bitcoin, like Tatiana Moroz. You can contact them to promote your site in the music and Bitcoin communities.
Good luck!
1 - We're definitely focusing on transparency around tip statuses.
2 - Yes, agreed!
3 - Good idea!
4 - Great, thanks!
If it's the latter, your claim of being able to tip "any artist in the world" seems a bit disingenuous. If it's the former, do you just pocket the donations if the artist refuses to sign up?
