The internet has been with us for over 30 years, with online advertising almost as old. While content creators and website owners have always found ways to monetize content delivery, content consumption has never been consistently profitable. That is now beginning to change. Companies are now figuring out ways to incentivize attention online for everyone involved in the digital value chain.
In fact, one cloud computing and blockchain company believes it has the key to unlock profits for users as well as creators, and unlike current options, their solution eliminates the need for adverts as well.
Network Effects
Gather is a cloud computing and blockchain technology company intent on rewarding both content creators, and content consumers, for the time they spend on any individual site. The way it works is simplicity itself: on a Gather enabled website the visitor is asked whether they would like to opt into the Gather network. If they choose to opt in they can continue to view the site with no noticeable change in the site’s performance, but with their spare processing power joining the Gather network.
This processing power can then be applied to a range of functions, such as mining cryptocurrency or, for computation-heavy services such as rendering graphics. The value of this processing power is then split between all players, including the content creator and content consumer. This is then paid in either Bitcoin (BTC), Gather Tokens (GTH), or local fiat currency.
Should users decide they do not wish to participate they can still view the content on offer, but without any of the benefits which participation confers. In any case, the concept is a paradigm shift in the monetization of online networks. According to Gather there are a number of potential use cases that they foresee as particularly appealing. Among these are video delivery platforms similar to YouTube, gaming sites, and charities. It has even been suggested that operating Gather on decentralized exchanges could help to offset gas costs.
Due to the way that Gather operates it has the potential to be more profitable for site owners as well. While there is a limit to the number of adverts that a site can deliver in any given time period, limiting the profit it can generate, Gather operates the entire time a user lends processing power to the network. This means that a 30 minute session on a site operating Gather may be 20 times more profitable than advertising revenue – while a one hour session may be up to 40 times more profitable.
New Horizons
Gather has already won significant backing from some major VC players including Bitscale Capital, LD Capital, TRG Capital and Master Ventures. Despite this, the long term success of the company will most likely boil down to how successful they are in persuading third parties sites to adopt their technology. Here there are some promising signs of early success too. Over 350 companies have already registered to Gather’s early adopters program, with a $4 billion mega corporation among their ranks.
If users are similarly captivated by Gather as corporations are, the internet could become a far more equitable place, at least from a financial perspective.