To reduce the cost of publishing a wearable to reflect current market conditions.
Abstract
The market has changed drastically since the last governance proposal for revising wearable fees done approx. 4 years ago.
The aim of this proposal is to update the cost of publishing a wearable to reflect current market conditions and to encourage budding creators to set off on their wearable creation journey.
Motivation
This is the link to the latest (4 years ago) governance proposal on revising wearables fee:
TLDR:
The existing cost of publishing a wearable is 100USD.
Of that: $30 goes to the curator. $10 goes to supporting hosting expenses for the catalyst nodes. $60 goes to the DAO to support the grants program, which has seen a restructure.
At the point of passing that governance proposal, MANA was hovering around $0.4. It has since been down and is currently hovering around $0.08 to $0.1.
Publishing fee is a barrier to entry.
As an example, a 100USD wearable fee means a creator has to sell almost 1-1.2k MANA worth of a single wearable before breaking even.
To break even, a creator has to sell:
59/100 of one’s Legendary at 20 MANA ea
235/1000 of one’s Rare at 5 MANA ea
This will mean a creator has to see a bulk of sales happen to breakeven before seeing the fruits of one’s labour.
Specification
I propose a revision of the fees as such:
$30 goes to the curator (UNCHANGED)
$10 goes to supporting hosting expenses for the catalyst nodes (UNCHANGED)
$10 goes to the DAO as a token of recognition. (NEW)
Conclusion
Anyone who’s been in DCL for the past 6 months, let alone 6 years, will tell you that we’ve come a long way, especially in the last year with the revamp of the new client.
In passing this proposal, my hope is that we can revitalise our wearables marketplace by reducing the cost of publishing wearables, which then hopefully turns into reducing the cost of buying wearables as well. This is a win win for both creators and players.
Over the past few months, I’ve published some of the best-selling emotes. Believe it or not, I’ve barely broken even (mainly due to the high publishing fees, which have to be earned first), and I’ve literally built them all for free. I might be making a small profit now.
And I’ve always thought very carefully about whether or not to publish something. With lower fees, I would certainly publish more, and I could also make a small profit, which I would reinvest in future projects anyway.
For the future, I would perhaps even like to see a creator-friendly bonus system where established creators who have proven what they can do receive a discount the more they publish.
But for now I’d be happy with reduced fees. That’s why I’ve voted YES
If such an experienced and prolific creator as yourself finds it challenging to breakeven, I can only imagine how hard it is for everyone else to submit unless they’ve already reconciled with the fact that its a loss making endeavour.
On a sidenote for everyone considering your votes, I will like to re-emphasize that the curators of wearables will not be affected by this change.
I understand there are publishing fees to reduce spamming (?) wearables to the marketplace and reward curators for making time to audit 3D models. But I never understood that the fees are for each item and not a collection. Fees to publish a collection of 7 items, a full body, shouldn’t be $700, come on. This is a massive entry barrier for new creators. I’m with lowering fee’s, even if it means as low as 10$ per item.
This YES form me. From a man that once spent thousands of dollars to get one wearable approved during the height it good to see innovation finally becoming affordable.