[DAO:de9ce36] Lowering Wearable Publishing Fee 2024

Governance
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by 0x87956abc4078a0cc3b89b419928b857b8af826ed (Nacho)

Linked Pre-Proposal

Lowering Wearable Publishing Fee 2024

Summary

This proposal refines the structure of wearable fees in a way that balances economic viability, inclusivity, and sustainability.

Abstract

This proposal revolves around redefining the wearable submission fee, aligning it more closely with our community’s ethos and the needs of our growing metaverse. By setting the fee at $20 USD, paid in MANA, and directing a portion of it to curators, the Catalyst network, and the DAO’s Grants Program, we can ensure a healthy ecosystem that benefits creators, curators, and the entire Decentraland community.

The fees to curators will be lowered from $30 USD to $10 USD.

The fees to the DAO will be lowered from $60 USD to $10 USD.

This leads to a total fee for creators for each wearable/emote from $100 USD to $20 USD.

Motivation

The initial proposal describes the same motivation:

”By reducing the fee, we increase the likelihood of new users engaging in creative endeavors. Numerous projects are actively integrating with Decentraland. We need to establish incentives to entice these newcomers into releasing wearables as well.”

The initial proposal was $100 USD, and we are now aiming to lower it to $20 USD. This number continues to be both straightforward and easily divisible among the DAO, Curators, and Catalyst, providing a smooth transition.

Specification

Fixed USD Price, Paid in MANA: The proposed fee is $20 USD. It will be in USD, payable in MANA. This approach removes the concerns around crypto price volatility while offering creators a stable pricing point.

Curator Compensation: $20 USD of the fee will be dedicated to compensating curators. This compensation aligns with their responsibilities and recognizes the importance of their role in maintaining quality and integrity.

DAO Investment in Growth: $10 USD will be allocated to the Decentraland DAO. This commitment reflects our dedication to fostering innovation, development, and the overall expansion of our metaverse.

Catalyst Network Support: To sustain the Catalyst network, fees used for primary sales will be directed towards supporting the hosting and storage expenses with a max cap of $10 USD per asset to keep the previous fee. The DAO must be in charge of computing the fees and distribute them accordingly. This ensures our platform’s stability and reliability.

Conclusion

“By reshaping the wearable submission fee structure, we empower creators, acknowledge curators, bolster the Catalyst network, and fuel the growth of our metaverse through the DAO’s initiatives. This proposal reflects our community’s collective aspirations and acknowledges the collaborative efforts that make Decentraland extraordinary.”

From a fee of $20 USD, the distribution will be a rate of $10 USD for each wearable under review. $10 USD back to the DAO & primary sales fees to the catalyst with a max cap of $10 USD.

It would be ideal to meet with the curators committee in 3 months to review how this is going in terms of creations, quality and DAO fees.

Vote on this proposal on the Decentraland DAO

View this proposal on Snapshot

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There is a typo in the Specification. It is $10 USD and not $20 USD.

Curator Compensation : $10 USD of the fee will be dedicated to compensating curators. This compensation aligns with their responsibilities and recognizes the importance of their role in maintaining quality and integrity.

1 Like
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The literally one greatest thing that DCL has is it marketplace. It’s not like any other marketplace and it was one of the biggest reasons I became a creator and did all the things I did. Seeing this recommendation is actually extremely distasteful and I predict will ultimately destroy the one advantage this platform has. Because even with a new client, it still is far behind other metaverses. The marketplace is the only thing that is different and unique both in quality and economy.

Reducing the fee to publish is NOT an incentive…what is the point of publishing if there is nobody to buy it or air-drop it to? You guys have the literal data on publishing in 2021 and 2022 during the bull. Was the fee stopping people from publishing then? NO! We saw two to three week curation times because of the amount of publishing! So much so that they had to recruit several curators to get those curation times down! We’ve reduced the fee several times now and it has NOT increased the amount of publishing since 2021/2022.

Do your own research

3 Likes
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Hey Nikki, how are you?

So the premise we’re looking for is: The best quality content possible with the most affordable price for creators to submit their items.

The point you are mentioning is a very reasonable point and agree that the community has a great level of items in the marketplace related to other virtual worlds, also is important that creators give their honest input about this proposal so we can get to the best possible outcome. Related to the proposal it remarks at the end a review with curators and checking the data obtained after 3 months and adjust if necessary. Take the proposal as an AB Testing, but in order to see if it’s beneficial for Decentraland we would need to try it first.

I discussed the subject with the curator committee, debating all the points related to this proposal and we concluded that the idea could be healthy for the creator’s community. There were members that don’t think is going to do a substantial change and members that thinks a very good action to do.The 100 USD paywall when submitting wearables may be too high for a lot of new creators outside the platform and can affect the decision to dive in to Decentraland, being part of the creator’s community and finally get an income when selling in the marketplace.

Definitely the idea is not lowering the quality of content. In that sense, the curators are going to have the same standards of quality assurance as today. And if the curators start to have difficulty or issues coming with the new system, then we can adjust as needed.

Also, I would like to hear more opinions of creators and how this may affect (positive or negative) to them. Again, the idea is to reach the best possible outcome for creators from this proposal.

1 Like
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Where is the data to back this kind of proposal though? Are people filing complaints about the fee? Did any reduction in the fee in the past result in more curations than the higher fee? Was there extensive market research done? I think this kind of change warrants a lot more data than what is being provided (none).

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Breakeven Analysis(USD for simplicity):

From 1/1 to 7/31, there have been 449 wearables published (Fee: $100USD in MANA)
By 12/31, we can annualize and estimate there to be 770 wearables published
Estimated 2024 Wearable Income at the current fee structure = $77,000 USD.
Estimated 2024 DAO Income = $46,000
Estimated 2024 Curator Fee = $23,000

To match the DAO income portion only at $20USD in MANA, we would need 4,600 wearables published.

Could a lower fee increase the number of submissions? Sure
Is it reasonable to expect a surge in wearable submisisons in the current market? Probably not

I understand the DAO is not revenue-focused, but in reality, wearable fees are one of the few ways we do generate income. Take this analysis as you wish:)

image
image743×418 55.4 KB

Source: Transparency Dashboard downloaded 8/1 at 7PM EST

2 Likes
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Exactly the type of data I’m talking about. Thank you!

Worth noting too that the revenue the DAO receives from the wearable submission fee is the reason why the marketplace is “gas free”. Each wearable submitted ensures around 400 gas free transactions (at a rough $0.15 per transaction). Reducing the fee would mean that each wearable submission would only ensure 66 gas free transactions. Meaning that there would need to be 6x more publishing to compete with the current rate.

I recognize that this would take a while to become a real problem considering how much the DAO has in reserve at the moment from past publishing, but we can’t ignore all the potential deficits.

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I think it’s good to reduce the barrier of creation, the revenue for DAO should be relying on the transaction of the wearable rather than putting the cost on the creator side.

As for the money part, I think for DAO to lose some income in exchange for more activities from the creator side is totally worth it. Besides, this lose is literally quite tiny compared with the DAO’s treasury.

However, i dont think can bring huge changes to the current delima of Decentraland, yet I think it is still a right thing to do, considering it is very easy and low-cost to implement.

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Catalysts have always been used as an excuse for curations fees, but ZERO cents from the curations have been going towards the catalysts so far. The current catalysts are being funded by the Foundation so far. While it would be good for the DAO to be funding them, it’s not currently the case.

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Has there been any discussion to change the percentage returned in primary sales from 2.5% to offset this lower amount?

1 Like
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I believe in minimizing the cost barrier for creators to enter Decentraland and start designing wearables. There are valid arguments for setting the price at $20, $100, $300, $500, or any other amount. However, reducing it to $20 or even eliminating it altogether might bring us closer to a more accessible platform. Charging a fee to protect the creator entry point hasn’t been particularly effective so far. Let’s consider lowering or removing this barrier entirely. After all, who would object if someone developed a passion for creating wearables as a hobby and subsequently built a following within Decentraland? I think removing the fee could significantly increase the chances of this happening repeatedly.

Charging creators $100 repeatedly is quite a costly barrier for creators. Encouraging creator-driven growth is an effective goal. I’d love to publish wearables again, but financially, $100 per publication is prohibitive for me. In the past, I didn’t continue publishing wearables to make money; I gave them away, and users loved it, which brought excitement to Decentraland.

My goal is to highly reward players in Exodus, where users aren’t paying heavy amounts of money for items. They earn them while they play. Some items are easier to access and others more difficult and time consuming. Driving engagement should be a high priority goal.

Just my thoughts and experiences, thanks for reading.

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If this passes does mana get returned to publishers who paid previous rates to submit?

We’ve seen refunds to creators in the past.

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It should not refund any previous publishers.

1 Like
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I think it should. You got refunded in the past and were completely okay with it.

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Refunds were due to delay between the date a proposal passed and the date it was implemented, not due to the changing fee itself.
So no, previous paid fees should not be refunded.

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While I support lessening burden and making it easier to publish wearables, I don’t think this is necessarily the right way to go about it. I think instead of a blunt reduction of cost we should look at a more dynamic approach, something that takes into consideration the success of the wearable. I’d suggest something similar to the way Steam (video game distribution platform) does their releases: you them pay $100 to release a game on their platform, but they’ll pay that back if your game makes over $1000 in revenue (effectively you are making a bet that you’ll sell at least that amount of copies on the platform, making it worthwhile for them to host it).

I doubt we’d be able to use those numbers in DCL (most larger platforms take between 20%-30%, both Steam and Roblox take a 30% cut from all sales, but DCL’s tax is much lower), but a system like that would incentivize creators to release higher quality wearables while also effectively eliminating the entry cost as long as the wearables are popular/sold enough. We should consider adopting this approach by moving the front-loaded cost of publishing wearables & maintaining the marketplace from publishing fees to rely more on sales transactions.

In my mind, the current mindset/implementation of using the publishing fee to subsidize market transactions doesn’t survive thinking about a long-term scenario where most wearables have decent sales. If a single publishing fee can pay for 400 transactions, then as soon as you sell any wearables past that point we need to take that ‘free gas money’ from somewhere else (in this case likely from another wearable that did not sell well); it is almost like the platform is betting you won’t sell anything past what the publishing fee covers so we can profit from the initial publishing fee, instead of attempting to rely on selling a high quantity of that wearble (which would happen in a health marketplace). If we were to rely on taxes instead (maybe with a min purchase fee of 20 cents to cover gas & subsidize other areas of the platform) then DCL would be motivated to sell more wearables.

We also need to consider how the approach of ‘publishing fees pay our gas’ would work out in the future if gas rates go up or we need each fee to cover more transactions. If we use that strategy to create a fix for those issues we could logically see an increase in publishing fees go up to cover those increasing costs, which would just make the barrier to create wearables on the platform higher (less content, leads to lower player retention, leading to fewer transactions).

To put it simply: with that mindset, the current marketplace relies more on creators paying the platform to release their goods for sale and DCL is rewarded when those goods do not sell (the less sales, the more we keep from that publishing fee), rather than relying on the sale of those goods and reaping benefits when more sales are made.

If we ever hit the case where DCL becomes popular and we have millions of users actively interacting with the marketplace and the transaction fees are not being covered within the cost of each purchase, then we’ll run a loss on any wearable that has a stock over 400 (or whatever each publishing fee covers).

I really think we should take a good think about how we want the economy of the marketplace to function and what burdens we want to place on elements of that economy to keep it running in the long-term: do we want to lean on the initial publishing fee, while knowing if a wearables sells a large quantity we’ll take a hit per sale past a certain point (after that initial publishing fee is exhausted); or should we be focusing on per-transaction approach, where we can ensure longevity no matter the quantity of sales (as well as boosting gains when more wearables are sold).

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Lowering Wearable Publishing Fee 2024

This proposal is now in status: REJECTED.

Voting Results:

  • Yes 21% 208,693 VP (23 votes)
  • No 65% 632,895 VP (18 votes)
  • Abstain 14% 145,010 VP (1 votes)