What I Hope For From Bitcoin Cash as a Content Creator

My bio on Read.cash says I'm a writer, artist, and comedian, and, after those, a "Bitcoin Cash enthusiast." The Bitcoin Cash part may seem tagged on, but they're actually all related. I'm into Bitcoin Cash for what it could to help my creative aspirations.

I'm not holier than thou, or anyone else, though. When the price of BCH goes up, I'm happy about it, and if it went up by a lot, that could really impact my life. So, it would be dishonest of me to claim that I'm not partly in it because of the potential to profit from the value increasing.

But I just can't relate to people who talk about crypto only in those terms. I mean, I understand where they're coming from. Everyone likes having more, and if you can get more seemingly by just kicking back and watching a number go up, who wouldn't take that option?

The problem I have with the simple "put fiat in and get fiat out" attitude towards crypto is partly pragmatic. If that's all anyone is doing with it, then it literally is just a form of Ponzi scheme. People putting money in and swirling it around and around while more people join, until eventually everyone cashes out, and those who get out just in time win, everyone else loses.

The cash-out investor types are probably coming at crypto with the same attitude that people come to stocks. You don't have to participate in a company in order to invest in it. But, don't you have to believe in it?

I mean, technically, no, you don't. So long as you think the stock is going to go up, then pure capitalist dogma says you should invest in it. A tenet of capitalism is that if something is good, it has market value. But I think somewhere along the way, that belief has been distorted into thinking that if something has market value, then it must be good. Which is definitely not always the case. Ask any drug addict.

But that's a deep philosophical well to go down. My point is, I understand why people play stocks with only a concern for whether or not it goes up or down, not for what the company is doing. Assuming they're not willfully disregarding clear human rights abuses or criminal behavior, a person isn't necessarily bad or unethical for just focusing on stock price.

But I wouldn't want to be like that. I trade some stocks, and part of my criteria for stocks is whether or not the company backing them helps make the world more like the one I want to live in, even if it's just a small and frivolous way.

I feel even more that way with cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin Cash. I don't just want my BCH holding to increase in purchasing power just so I can go retire on a beach or whatever boring trope of retirement it is that no one seems to actually do. I don't see Musk, Bezos, or Zuckerberg stopping now that they have more than enough money to retire on any beach in the universe. So why do we always talk about money like it's this thing that would make people retreat from life, as opposed to engaging it more, with increased freedom and options?

The internet has created all sorts of new ways for artists to reach out to audiences, but it's still limited in how audiences reach back. There's more feedback in the form of getting people's comments or whatever. But financially, models for income are still largely stuck in the 1990s. Advertising, monthly subscriptions, agents and publishers.

The internet has enabled some more direct models of payment, like Patreon and Twitch and others. But in all cases, there are financial institutions sitting between artist and audience, taking their cut. That economic friction limits the degree to which any artist can receive support for their work. So far, it hasn't been enough to truly upset the status quo.

What I want from Bitcoin Cash is to help realize a world in which there are no middlemen taking a cut of content creation simply by controlling the means of value transfer. I'd like to be a writer, artist, and comedian, with much more control over the financial relationship I have with my audience.

In a way, the most pure form of artist to audience financial relationship is that of a street busker, the kind you see playing an instrument or doing something out on the street, with a hat on the ground for collecting donations. A huge component of what makes busking work is that there is zero friction, 100% of the audience payment goes to the artist, which, in my experience, is something audiences feel good about.

Also, just as critical, is the lack of minimum payment or obligations. A person can throw a penny into the hat just as easily as a bill. The audience can also throw some amount in, and not have to commit to any agreement of any kind, especially to pay monthly or other problematic payment schemes that are becoming more popular online. And lastly, but still important, the audience who throws money in stays completely anonymous.

In a way, I'd like all payments across the internet to be just as frictionless and "mimimum-less" as street busking. That would be a game changer for my aspirations as an artist, and that's why "Bitcoin Cash Enthusiast" is a part of, not just an add on to, my identity as a creator.

Just like I don't think banks or governments will crumble in a crypto world, I don't think a de facto worldwide peer-to-peer currency would eradicate the kinds of businesses that aggregate content and provide marketing and audiences on behalf of creators. I just think that in all these arenas, the parameters will change, and give more leverage to individual creators. It might be in my interest to work with a company that promotes me, but the negotiation will be a lot more fair to the degree that I can establish direct access to paying fans.

In my opinion, Bitcoin Cash is currently the only cryptocurrency that has the potential to achieve the kind of near frictionless content creation marketplace I hope for. So I not only hold BCH, I try to use it, to buy things, to move it around, to help create the world I want to be in.

And by doing so, it helps, in theory, move the value up. Which is also nice.