Minds launches free alternative to Patreon

This week, journalist, Tim Pool, interviewed Minds co-founder and CEO, Bill Ottman about Minds' new upcoming (and recently implemented) wire system that allows users to transfer funds within the site.

The program allows people to send US Dollars and/or Minds points to anyone on the site, seamlessly.  This can be done as a gift or as part of the newly featured Reward Tier system the company has rolled out.

 

 

What is the reward system?

 

 

“It's a huge monetization upgrade, you can put up tiers [of rewards]" says Ottman.  The program, which allows users to wire each other money on a one-time or recurring basis, is very similar to Patreon's model in that the exclusive tiers are met by monthly payments to unlock the rewards.

Pool, himself, has already received 54 wires, totalling $445 dollars since the time this article was written.

In addition to the new, open-source functionality, Minds’ content policy is more open than that of Patreon (which has recently shut down the accounts of some of its controversial users).

 

 

"Crowdfunding is everything now," says Ottman, "and no one owns crowdfunding."

Indeed, his idea to liberate the crowdfunding scene is ideal.  As companies with CEOs have continued to show, a single person's judgement is not quite capable of controlling the behavior of the masses or deciding who gets to speak and who doesn't.

The new peer-to-peer functionality has seen great success in the first days of implementation.

"It's actually more capable than Patreon in a lot of ways," says Ottman, expressing that you can also use the system, simply for donations. "And [don't forget] Bitcoin," he adds, noting the upcoming feature that will allow users to add the insanely popular cryptocurrency to their portfolio of tradable income on the site.

The process is expected to hyper-accelerate users' ability to spend and receive money. It is one of many big moves made by the company since closing the fastest crowdfunding equity sale in US history only months ago.

 

Tim Pool is an award winning journalist, technologist and documentary filmmaker.  You can watch the entire interview with Bill Ottman here.