Buy, Buy, Buy (The Future Of Minds?) -Updated #MindsGaming #Op #OpenMinds
Minds has removed the ability to lock posts for the base user, a huge downer for the prospects of making money on the network. Users will now have to be a “Plus” user to lock posts for tokens.
Now before we go into the downers of this along with other recent changes lets point out that this was a way under used feature by the user base, and is a valuable asset that Minds should try to make better promote and gain income from, but it looks like they are trying to scrap down every feature into a subscription base model.
To share your content from the Minds network to others networks you will need to have had a token in your account at one time, the help and support admin at the time of your “How do I remove the login page from my content” help and support post is running low the answer will most likely be to just buy a token.
Then if you want to lock your post for tokens, you will currently have to buy a plus membership, to make money off views you will have to buy a pro membership, and now we can see where this road is leading us pretty easily.
I don’t think any new features coming to Minds often boasted about like streaming, or group encrypted private messengers will ever be a base user feature if they are not for long in my eyes, in short nothing a base account should look forward to seeing. Of course the CEO says features like this that are coming will be for base accounts so we can hope they stay that way.
Ads Vs Subscriptions
The key component to this is whats the alternative and of course the answer is ads, and most of these require companies to give them user info, and Minds doesn’t want to do that and protect the user as much as possible or that's what we are told.
From the day of TV ads have been the backbone of our media systems running behind them have always been subscriptions, but are these really your only options to maintain your media empire?
Well simply put the answer is no, although I support having some subscription type products for the big bucks, a base user percentage model where both the network and user make a percentage of the earnings of locked content, views and other is a much better approach as one isn’t making money without the other.
I think Minds should rethink the concept of locking away a user feature that in the long run only empowers users to gain a subscription model themselves freely while making themselves and the network money only off what actually works.
Will we go Plus?
Yes, we have gone plus to submit some content to the Minds+ pool in the future to help support our little community here on Minds. With the updated info provided by the Minds CEO we will continue to look for these base user changes to the system and allow them to freely lock content as a non plus member and create membership tiers.
Ways To Keep Making Money
As a base account as long as you have a connected ETH wallet like Metamask you can try to make a few cents yourself buy trading or liquidating tokens from your ETH wallet on 3rd party sites and soon be able to lock posts again as a base user for P2P support. We have made a collection of information on minds tokesn for base users in our blogs and will link the main index blog at the bottom of this one.
Closing
Thanks for reading as always, if you have a question about tokens feel free to ask me. I am really sad to see Minds making a once base feature for the users a charge, and can see this concept heading down a long high cost road #WhatNow ? (← Did I do that right?)
Updated info :
According to the Minds CEO @ottman Minds plans on removing the current block on locking posts and have dubbed the "Must be plus" screen when locking posts a bug. He has also made a new blog on the issue clearing any misconceptions on the issue linked below.
Among other things he has made it clear to us that:
1.) Base users will be able to lock posts.
2.) Membership tiers will also remain open to base users however you will not gain from the Minds+ pool for locked posts, and you should be able to create tiers now as a base user and have supporters for these tiers and need to connect things like a Metamask wallet however the connect a bank is a bug.
I am glad that this has been all cleared up and expect a quick fix for the issue so users are not misinformed and displayed a prompt to enroll in Minds+ when trying to lock a post.
Thanks again as always for reading!!!
Related Blog:
A Helpful Guide to Minds Token