Web3's Promise of Equity for Artists May Be Here at Last (2024)

In October of last year, I wrote a piece outlining why I believe that in business, real culture change means equity. It means that creators of all disciplines and across all genres have ownership of their work and are compensated fairly in exchange for selling that work. If executed properly, compensation as equity for artists also acknowledges and makes adjustments to imbalances. Historically and today, the absence of such equity has been the plight of countless artists.

In 2017, musicians received 12% of the $43 billion of revenue generated by the music industry that year. On Spotify, which currently represents about 84% of recorded music revenue, musicians earn a royalty of between $0.003 and $0.005, a rate that would take more than 800,000 streams per month to match the compensation of a $15.00 per hour job. This isn’t a livelihood, and it’s nowhere near equity. But maybe, just maybe, by now there’s an app for that.

Ever since the distribution of the Satoshi Bitcoin Whitepaper, the promise of Web3 has been that Web3 technologies will create transparency, transform entire industries and foster justice and equity. That’s why I attended Blockchain for Social Impact conferences from 2012 to 2016. Like many tech and social good advocates, I saw Web3 as a means for closing gaps in transparency and an opportunity to trace injustice — particularly in the nonprofit fundraising world. But the technology wasn’t advanced enough yet. Most blockchain projects that slid into my inbox looking for coverage lasted for a year tops.

How Accessibility Supports Equity

Later in 2021 when NFTs and DAOs became the rage, Web3 technologies showed promise for giving people equity, as well as a non-fungible piece of culture. While the days of 10,000-piece NFT collections selling out in three minutes are over, we’re now in a place where the tech is advanced enough and more accessible to everyday consumers — not just crypto and blockchain natives.

The Web3-based music streaming platform and music NFT marketplace Tune.fm is proving this point. I met Tune.fm CEO Andrew Antar during SXSW and was immediately intrigued by the service that pays artists up to 100 times more than Spotify.

Built on Hedera, the most sustainable public blockchain network available, most of Tune.fm’s user base consists of artists and music fans who had never used a Web3 product until they joined the platform.

The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?

In addition to ensuring that musicians get paid their worth, Tune.fm also enables artists to monetize their superfans through high-value tokenization. As part of the superfan experience, the platform provides unlockable backstage passes, meet and greets with artists, front-row seats, VIP packages and Zoom calls with musicians. This approach is not only great for fans, it unlocks more compensation for artists. Some musicians are distributing their music exclusively on Tune.fm, and fans are expressing that they have a deeper connection to their favorite artists through the service.

(Note: I am not affiliated with Tune.fm.)

Curated Experiences, Personalization and Co-Creation

Brands and business leaders can take a cue from curated experiences like the superfan perks available through Tune.fm. Providing tokenized and personalized rewards for loyal customers, such as event invitations and product discounts, builds community. And the success of Web3 projects are driven inherently by their communities. Basic transactions and linear subscriptions are a thing of the past when businesses and Web3 collide — because, through this convergence, a company has an opportunity to seamlessly co-create with an active brand advocate in its community.

In the Web3 world where data and content are owned by users and artists, rather than third parties, new income streams and new business models become possible, and consumers have an opportunity to become partners — or even owners. For instance, if a brand and creator decide to co-create a project together, thanks to blockchain technology, they both can be compensated every time the creation is sold to another buyer. This creates a constant source of revenue and brand equity.

This kind of activity is becoming easier for brands to grasp and consumers to take advantage of, as Web3 is migrating out of the degen world and being integrated into products that mainstream consumers use. As more companies build and harness Web3 products that are easily accessible to the masses and as Web3-based platforms design more intuitive UX for people who are not accustomed to blockchain tools, the promise that drew me to Web3 over a decade ago may prevail.

Just as the way our society treats its most prolific artists is a reflection of our values and our culture, the way brands engage with their customers and innovate mirrors a company’s culture and capacity to not only adapt to the times but to be leaders in digital transformation.