Hi everyone. So, I'm going to take us back to 2007. I'd just spent about six months working on album that I'd poured my heart and my soul into, and it was getting about three plays per day on Myspace at the time, and I was getting more and more depressed when I started noticing these other people who were playing guitar and singing and putting videos on this new site called YouTube, and they were getting 300,000 views. So I decided I'm going to start making some Youtube videos. And one day they featured a video of my band on the homepage, which was amazing -- we got a bunch of new fans. We also got a bunch of people who, I guess, just didn't really like the music or something --
大家好 现在我要带大家回到2007年 我刚刚花费六个月的 时间在一张专辑上 一张让我倾尽心力的专辑 这张专辑在聚友网(Myspace)上 每天大概会被播放三次 当我看到其他用吉他自弹自唱的人 将他们的视频放到 一个叫YouTube的新兴网站上 并且得到了30万的浏览量 我开始变得越来越沮丧 所以我决定也开始 做一些YouTube视频 有一天 YouTube在它们的主页上 放了一个我们乐队的视频 那个视频非常精彩 我们因此得到了一大票新粉丝 还有和一大帮人 我猜他们并不喜欢我们的音乐之类的
(Laughter)
(笑声)
It's OK because people started coming to our shows, and we started touring, and we came out with a record. And when I checked our bank account balance after our first monthly iTunes payout, we had 22,000 bucks in it, which was amazing because at the time I was living at my dad's house, trying to make a living as a musician by uploading videos to the internet which literally zero people respected in 2009 -- even the people who were uploading videos to the internet.
不过没关系 因为人们 开始来看我们的表演了 我们也开始进行巡演 我们创造了一个记录 当我查看银行账户余额的时候 iTunes第一个月收入结算显示 我们有了2万2千美元的进账 太不可思议了 因为那会儿 我还住在我爸的房子里呢 上传视频到网上去 试图以艺术家的身份谋生 在2009年的时候没多少人买账 甚至自己上传视频 到网上的人对此也并不乐观
And so for the next four years, I uploaded more and more videos to the Internet, and they got better and better, and we made enough money through brand deals and commercials and iTunes sales to buy a house. And we built a recording studio. But there was one big problem: making money as a creative person in 2013 was super weird. First of all, the business models were changing all the time. So our 58,000 dollars of annual iTunes download income was about to be replaced by about 6,000 dollars of streaming income. Steams paid less than downloads. And then as more and more creators started popping up online, there was just more competition for these five-figure brand deals that had kept the band afloat for years. And to top it all off, our videos themselves -- the creative stuff that we made that our fans loved and appreciated -- that were actually contributing value to the world, those videos were generating almost zero dollars of income for us. This is an actual snapshot of my YouTube dashboard from a 28-day period that shows one million views and 166 dollars of ad earnings for those views.
接下来的四年 我上传了越来越多的视频到互联网上 这些视频也越来越好 通过品牌交易广告和iTunes的销量 我们赚了足够的钱 买下了一所房子 我们还建了一个录音室 但还有一个大问题 作为一个创作人去赚大钱 在2013年是非常古怪的 首先 商业模式在一直变化 所以我们每年5万8千美元的 iTunes下载收入 将会被6千美元的在线播放收入所取代 在线播放比下载付钱更少 随着越来越多的创作者在网上涌现 五位数的品牌交易 有了越来越多的竞争 而这正是我们乐队 一直赖以生存的基础 而最重要的是 我们的视频本身 我们创作的被粉丝所喜爱欣赏的 有创作力的作品 也是我们为这个世界带来的贡献 那些视频却几乎没有 为我们带来任何收入 这是我YouTube面板的真实截图 在28天中 100万的观看量 以及从这些观看中获得的 166美元广告收入
The whole machine in 2013 that took art online and outputted money was totally nonfunctional. It doesn't matter if you're a newspaper, or an institution, or an independent creator. A monthly web comic with 20,000 monthly readers -- 20,000 monthly readers -- gets paid a couple hundred bucks in ad revenue. This is 20,000 people. Like, in what world is this not enough? I don't understand. What systems have we built where this is insufficient for a person to make a living?
在2013年 这一整个机制 将艺术放到网上来赚钱 完全没有用 无论你是经营报纸 或者一个机构 还是一个独立的创作者 一个有两万名读者的 每月更新的网络漫画 两万个读者 只会得到几百美元的广告收入 这是两万人的访问量啊 在什么样的世界里 这个数字还不够(赚大钱) 我完全不理解 我们创造了个什么样的体系 让这还不足以 独立支撑一个人的生存
So, I actually have a theory about this. I think it's been a weird 100 years.
事实上我对这一点有一套理论 我认为这100年来都很怪异
(Laughter)
(笑声)
(Applause)
(掌声)
About 100 years ago, humans figured out how to record sound onto a wax cylinder. That was the beginning of the phonograph. Right around the same time, we figured out how to record light onto a piece of photographic paper, celluloid -- the beginning of film and television. For the first time, you could store art on a thing, which was amazing. Art used to be completely ephemeral, so if you missed the symphony, you just didn't get to hear the orchestra. But now, for the first time, you could store the orchestra's performance on a physical object, and like, listen to it later, which was amazing. It was so amazing in fact, that for the next 100 years, between 1900 and 2000, humans built just billions and billions of dollars of infrastructure to essentially help artists do two things. First, put their art on a thing, and second, get that thing around the world to the people who wanted the art. So, so much industry is devoted to these two problems. Oh my gosh, there are trucking companies, and brick-and-mortar and marketing firms, and CD jewel case manufacturers, all devoted to these two problems.
大约一百年前 人类研究出了怎样在蜡桶上记录声音 这是留声机的起源 大约在同一时间 我们发现了怎样将光记录 在一张相纸上 赛璐珞(电影胶片) 标志着电影和电视时代的开始 我们第一次可以将艺术 储存在一个事物上 这是非常不可思议的 艺术过去常常是转瞬即逝的 如果你错过了交响乐音乐会 你就听不到乐团的演出了 而现在 前所未有的 你可以将乐队的演出储存在 一个实物上了 并且可以以后再听 非常不可思议 事实上简直太不可思议了 所以接下来的100年 从1900到2000年 人们在基础设施建设上 花了数以亿计的钱 基本上是在帮助艺术家做两件事 第一件 将艺术放在一件物体上 第二件 让这件物体传遍全世界 去给那些想要艺术的人 太多太多的产业 都专注于这两件事了 我的天 还包括货物运输公司 实体和营销公司 还有CD盒制造公司 全都致力于这两件事
And then we all know what happened. 10 years ago, the internet matures and we get Spotify and Facebook and YouTube and iTunes and Google search, and a hundred years of infrastructure and supply chains and distribution systems and monetization schemes are completely bypassed -- in a decade. After 100 years of designing these things, it's no wonder that it's just totally broken for creative people right now. It's no wonder that the monetization part of the chain doesn't work given this new context.
接下来我们都知道发生了什么 10年前 因特网变得成熟 我们有了Spotify Facebook YouTube iTunes和谷歌搜索 百年的基础设施 供应链和分配系统 货币化方案 在十年中 在设计出这些事物的100年后 就这样被完全地被绕过了 难怪对创作者来说它完全失效了 难怪产业链中的货币化部分 在这种新的背景下 失去了作用
But what gets me super excited to be a creator right now, to be alive today and be a creative person right now, is realizing that we're only 10 years into figuring out this new machine -- to figuring out the next 100 years of infrastructure for our creators. And you can tell we're only 10 years in. There's a lot of trial and error, some really good ideas forming, a lot of experimentation. We're figuring out what works and what doesn't. Like Twitch streamers. Who's heard of Twitch? Twitch streamers are making three to five thousand bucks a month streaming gaming content. The big ones are making over 100,000 dollars a year. There's a site called YouNow, it's an app. It allows musicians and vloggers to get paid in digital goods from fans.
而作为一名当今的创作者 现在使我感到非常兴奋的是 是意识到我们才刚刚花费了十年 去探寻这个新的机制 为我们的创作者 搭建未来100年的基础设施 你可以看出我们才仅仅开始十年 有很多的尝试和错误 也有一些非常好的观点逐渐形成 进行了许多实验 我们正在搞清什么有用 什么没有用 就像Twitch流平台 谁听过Twitch Twitch用户每个月能得到 3千到5千美元 通过上传游戏视频 厉害的人每年能赚超过10万美元 有一个网站叫YouNow 它是一个应用程序 它让音乐家和视频博主 通过虚拟道具从粉丝那里赚钱
So, I'm also working on the problem. Four years ago I started a company called Patreon with a friend of mine. We're 80 people now working on this problem. It's basically a membership platform that makes it really easy for creators to get paid -- every month from their fans to earn a living. For a creator, it's like having a salary for being a creative person. And this is one of our creators. They're called "Kinda Funny." They have about 220,000 subscribers on YouTube. And when they upload a video, it gets somewhere around 15,000 views to 100,000 views. I want you to check yourselves right now. I think when we hear numbers like that, when we hear "15,000 views," and we see content like this, we just snap categorize it as being not as legitimate as a morning show that you'd hear on the radio or a talk show that you'd see on NBC or something But when "Kinda Funny" launched on Patreon, within a few weeks, they were making 31,000 dollars per month for this show. It took off so fast that they decided to expand their programming and add new shows, and now they launched a second Patreon page -- they're making an additional 21,000 dollars per month. And they're scaling what's essentially becoming a media company, financing the whole thing through membership.
所以我也在研究这个问题 四年前我和我的一个朋友 开了一家叫Patreon的公司 我们现在有80个人在研究这个问题 它本质上是一个会员平台 一个让创作者非常容易 得到报酬的平台 他们每月从粉丝那里赚钱来维持生活 对于创作者来说就像 拿着薪水去成为一个有创造力的人 这是我们的创作者之一 他们叫做 有点搞笑 他们在YouTube上 有大约22万的订阅者 当他们上传一个视频时 大约会得到1万5到10万的浏览量 我想请大家现在想想 当我们听到那样的数字 听到 1万5的浏览量 并且看到了这样的内容 我们会立刻认为这不合理 就像你在收音机听到的晨间节目 或者是你在NBC之类听到的脱口秀 但是当 有点搞笑 在Patreon上推出 在几周之内他们就能够 平均每月赚到3万1千美元 就靠这个节目 它发展得太快了以致于 他们决定扩展节目规划 并且增添新的节目 然后现在他们有了第二个Patreon主页 每个月他们可以额外赚到2万1千美元 他们已经扩张到差不多 成为一家媒体公司了 所有的资金都来自于会员制度
OK, here's another example. This is Derek Bodner, a sports journalist who used to write for Philadelphia Magazine until a few months ago when the magazine cut out all sports coverage. Now he writes articles and publishes them on his own website -- he's still covering sports, but for himself. And he's making 4,800 bucks a month from 1,700 patrons, financing it through membership.
这是另一个例子 这是Derek Bodner 一个曾为费城杂志撰稿的体育记者 几个月之前这家杂志 删掉了所有的体育新闻报道 现在他在自己的网站上 创作并且发布文章 他仍然报道体育 但是是为了他自己 现在他每月从1700位会员那里 赚到4800美元 通过会员制度赚钱
This is Crash Course -- free educational content for the world. This show is actually on the PBS digital network -- 29,000 dollars per month. This is a duo sailing around the world, getting paid every month for documenting their travels from 1,400 patrons. This is a podcast, "Chapo Trap House", making -- actually, since I screenshotted this, they're making an additional 2,000 dollars per month, so they're now making 56,000 dollars per month for their podcast.
这是速成班 提供免费的教育内容给全世界 这个节目在PBS数字网络上播出 每月2万9千美元收入 而这两人航行全世界 通过记录他们的旅行获得收益 有1400位会员 这个播客 城市陷阱屋 能赚到 实际上自从我截了这个图 他们每个月能多赚2千美元 所以他们现在通过博客 每月能赚取5万6千美元
And Patreon's not the only one working on the problem. Even Google's starting to work on this. A couple years ago, they launched Fan Funding; more recently, they launched Super Chat as a way for creators to monetize live streaming. Newspapers are starting to experiment with membership. New York Times has a membership program; The Guardian has over 200,000 paying subscribers to its membership program. There's this bubbling soup of ideas and experiments and progress right now, and it's pointing in the direction of getting creators paid. And it's working. It's not, like, perfect yet, but it's really working.
Patreon不是唯一一个 研究这个问题的平台 甚至谷歌也在研究它 几年前他们推出了 粉丝众筹 最后又推出了 超级聊天 作为一种能将创作者的 直播流变现的途径 报纸也开始尝试会员制 纽约时报有一个会员项目 卫报有超过20万的付费订阅者 在它的会员项目中 现在想法 实验 进步就像 滚汤中上涌的气泡 并且它指出了能让创作者赚钱的方向 并且效果很不错 虽然它现在还不完美 但效果很明显
So, Patreon has over 50,000 creators on the platform making salaries -- getting paid every month for putting art online, for being a creative person. The next hundred years of infrastructure is on the way and it's going to be different this time because of this -- because of the direct connection between the person who makes the thing and the person who likes the thing.
现在Patreon上有超过5万个创作者 在这个平台上赚取薪水 通过将艺术放到网上 来得到每月收入 去成为一个创作者 未来一百年的基础建设正在进行中 并且这次它将变得不同 因为这个 这个在创作者和追随者之间 建立的直接联系
About seven or eight years ago, I went to a cocktail party. This is when the band had hit our first machine, so things were really cranking. We had just made about 400,000 dollars in one year through iTunes sales and brand deals and stuff like that. And this guy comes up to me and says, "Hey, Jack, what do you do?" I said, "I'm a musician." And he just sobered up immediately, and he stuck out his hand, put a hand on my shoulder, and in a real earnest, very nice voice he was like, "I hope you make it someday."
大概七八年前 我去参加一个鸡尾酒派对 那时乐队第一次使用这种机制 万事开头难 我们刚刚在一年之内赚到40万美元 通过iTunes销量和品牌交易等途径 这家伙来到我面前说 你好 杰克 你是做什么的 我说 我是一个音乐家 他立刻变得严肃起来 然后他伸出一只手 另一只手搭在我的肩膀上 用非常认真,友好的语气说 我希望你某一天会成功
(Laughter)
(笑声)
And ... I have so many moments like that logged in my memory. I just cringe thinking of that. It's so embarrassing to just not feel valued as a creative person. But as a species, we are leaving that cocktail party behind. We're leaving that culture, we're out of there. We're going to get so good at paying creators, within 10 years, kids graduating high school and college are going to think of being a creator as just being an option -- I could be a doctor, I could be a lawyer, I could be a podcaster, I could have a web comic. It's just going to be something you can do. We're figuring it out. It's going to be a viable and sustainable and respected profession. Creators are going to come out the other end of this weird 100 years, this century-long journey, with an awesome new machine. And they're going to be paid, and they're going to be valued. Thanks, everybody.
还有 我记忆里有太多相似的时刻了 我一想到这些就会有些怯懦 作为一个创作者却不被认为有价值 这实在是太尴尬了 但是作为一个物种 我们正在将那个鸡尾酒派对抛到脑后 我们正在远离那种文化 离开那个圈子 在10年之内 我们会越来越擅长 为创作者支付报酬 孩子们从中学和大学毕业后 也会将成为一名创作者 当作一个选项 我可以成为一个医生 我可以成为一个律师 我可以成为一个播主 我可以开一个网络漫画 它将是一件你可以去做的事 我们正在努力 它会成为一个可行的 可持续的 并受到尊敬的职业 创作者将从这奇怪的百年 这个世纪之旅的 另一端走出来 伴随着一个绝妙的新机制 他们将会获得报酬 他们将会受到重视 谢谢大家
(Applause)
(掌声)
I think it went pretty well. I want artists who saw that to not give up -- to know that we're getting there. It's not there yet, but in a couple years, there will be so many systems and tools for them to just make a living online, and if they've got a podcast that's starting to take off, but they're not able to make money on it yet, that's happening and they're going to be paid. It's happening.
我认为讲得非常不错 我想让看到它的艺术家们不要放弃 让他们知道我们正在改变现状 现在还没有完全实现 但在未来的几年内 会有更多的体系和工具出现 使他们可以在网络上谋生 如果他们已经有了一个播客 开始跃跃欲试 但目前还不能够通过这个赚钱 这很正常 但他们以后会赚到钱的 指日可待