Thoughts on Nostr from a creator perspective

On a weekend in March 2024, I shared and streamed my electronic music as @Teder on nostr and received an overwhelming number of heartfelt responses.

While doing so, I was building a list of followers that can’t be censored or deleted by any company that can interact with me trough chat, stream, music streaming.

In each of the pieces of content I was able to setup split payments, which means all of the contributors instantly got their commissions, with negligable transaction costs and without the platform taking a big cut.

I wrote a piece about this experience including a detailed onboarding and my insights. I invite you to share it with creators as I did with my musical peers!

This piece was presented as a talk Experiencing value for value on Nostr as an independant artist, presented at Nostr Nederland 3 Meetup April 2024 in Utrecht.

Onboarding

• I installed amethyst on my Android and damus on my ipad, and created a private public key pair
• I filled in my nostr profile through the Amethyst app and discovered my profile identifier: the npub account for Teder https://njump.me/npub1asuq0pxedwfagpqkdf4lrfmcyfaffgptmayel9947j8krad3x58srs20ap
• I created a bitcoin lightning wallet in walletofsatoshi app, copied the lightning adress and filled the address in profile.
• I added NIP05 verification on my website using a WordPress plugin
• I then created a new post in Damus sharing a short clip of the Teder and TimMey - Rebound EP jam including the introductions hashtag https://njump.me/nevent1qqsfqh0085arl45js5x7s40tm49xrgw76a0nsdhjpcdq9tpzsweg4hqpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyrkrspuym94e84qyze4xhud80q38499q9005n8u5kh6g7c04ky6s7qcyqqqqqqg9cttm9
• I received a whole bunch of reactions and zaps, amongst which recommendations to host a stream with my live music on tunestr / zapstr, and to publish the album on wavlake
• That night, I streamed a live set for 40 minutes on zapstr: https://njump.me/nevent1qqsd4sru85vk7mpcq6j5c60w9ku5qwk0m2627hzjvfjgfd3vc5nek6cpzamhxue69uhkummnw3ezu6rpwd5xyctwvuhxumqzyrkrspuym94e84qyze4xhud80q38499q9005n8u5kh6g7c04ky6s7qcyqqqqqqgz275ar
• During the stream, I received some bigger zaps, between 1000 and 10000 SATs per zap
• I then uploaded the EP on wavlake: https://wavlake.com/album/e0d37f7c-aa8b-44b3-b41e-42637e958f91
• I mentioned the release in a couple of replies, and received about 7000 SATs worth of zaps on the songs of the album within a day.

Response

• In about 24 hours I received hundreds of reactions, likes and about 29400 SATs ~ €19. This is more royalties then I’ve ever received from any streaming platform, and these were immediately liquid in my account ready to be spent on nostr ór converted to fiat to for instance fund my next physical release.
• These rewards include zaps on the reactions and the answering questions from the audience, which is something we are already used to do on other platforms, but were never able to get rewarded for other than brand building.

Insights

• Motivation: Motivation to get back to sharing due to the constant stream of micro payments is very high. Some contributions are only 5 or 21 SATs but it is the fact that someone consciously sent it that really matters, and gives you a sense of worth other than people just trying to build their brand / persona with replies, as is often the case on instagram.
  • See my post, the gratitude I feel for these tiny payments is very high: https://njump.me/nevent1qqsxdahe2f2s2kqnvx96juqfdnxnwt69dwveadqun3apwzluvgz097spp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzyrkrspuym94e84qyze4xhud80q38499q9005n8u5kh6g7c04ky6s7qcyqqqqqqgwl7ljh
  • Receiving small monetary rewards also has the interesting side effect of reciprocity, and also entices you to support others with the SATs you have received in your wallet.
• Portability and ownership over fanlist: Being able to take your following/fans and content with you when you are moving back and forth in different applications (such as the Twitter like environment, the Twitch like streaming environment and the Spotify like music catalog environment). In comparison, starting a new TikTok from scratch takes a lot of time and energy, even though the format of sharing short clips and repurposing content from others is pretty cool.
• Evergreen content: Having new followers on different applications find your older content in the same environment, and being able to send micro payments to all that content transparently is very encouraging to make you want to create and share higher quality and more evergreen content.
• Collaboration commission: Collaborations are amongst my favorite activities while creating. Being able to set up payment splits on each separate piece of content ( Even on a single Tweet!) is very encouraging to both creator and fan. There is just something enticing about contributing knowing that sending that zap will land some value to both the musicians, the visual artist that made the artwork, and for instance the videographer that shot the video. And all that without needing to settle afterwards or pay high transaction fees.
• Community efforts: Imagine producing a radio show with live performances from multiple community members and sharing all zaps between involved members equally, or transparently raising money for specific goal / charity!

Opportunities for music artist groups / collectives / labels (such as Petite Victory Collective)

I see very interesting opportunities for both PVC and online radio sites such as massive radio to use this network for bringing attention to our music, events and streams. The whole decentralised / no-middleman-company-in-between really resonates with the goals and setup of the community.

• Stream shows, live events and massive radio streams and enable receiving of streaming sats rewards from listeners.
• Setting up split payments for content to divide rewards amongst both musicians, visual artists, vj, radio hosts etc.
• Stream live shows / dj sets to promote albums and releases.
• Provide live shows / streams / music / DJ at nostr / bitcoin events while the network is still growing.
• Selling merchandise with crypto payments, cutting out platform and transaction costs and splitting rewards amongst contributors.
• Integration of audience in live streams, taking inspiration for jam / improvisation from crowd.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article, feel free to comment with your thoughts or reach out if you have further questions about these topics or onboarding you music onto nostr!