The Interledger Community 🌱: Lior Zalmanson

Sharing Funds - Sharing Values? - Final Grant Report

Lior Zalmanson — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 20:20:04 +0000

Our project’s high-level objective was to study the suitability of the Web Monetization model as a tool for grassroots initiatives and activists operating online. We proposed that - thanks to some of the model’s unique characteristics and particularly the visibility of the monetization process - it may affect users’ online content consumption choices in ways that are especially beneficial for independent creators and activists. Based on theories from social and cognitive psychology (i.e., self-consistency, self-perception, and cognitive dissonance), we hypothesized that users who are aware of the monetization of online content - the monetary compensation that their online browsing provides to the creators or owners of that content - will prefer to consume content that is aligned with their own views and beliefs. In addition, such users may also view their content consumption as a way of supporting the creators and the causes they support.

Project Update

Since our last report, we have completed the analysis of our surveys, designed and built an experimental setting, and ran a series of studies.
We have created dedicated posts to report our findings:

Survey results: People's views, preferences, and familiarity with online content monetization

Survey results: Ideological considerations in content consumption

Experiments results: Web Monetization encourages users’ to make value-driven content consumption choices (which also includes an overview of our theory building and hypotheses)

Progress on objectives

Our objective was to study how awareness of online content monetization affects users’ consumption choices and how this might be used for the benefit of independent creators, activists, and grassroots initiatives. The past few months were dedicated to surveying users and developing the proper experimental framework for testing our hypotheses.

The surveys helped us understand users’ overall preferences on online content consumption and monetization: Do people prefer seeing ads or paying for subscriptions? How much should platforms pay content creators? How much do people care about the values of the creators of the content they read?
We developed a set of experiments based on our theoretical framework and what we learned from the surveys. Those allowed us to study the causal relationships between monetization awareness, peoples’ values and ideology, and online content consumption choices.
We are excited to report that our studies uncovered relevant insights that, we hope, could benefit the web monetization community and encourage others to join.

Key activities

Surveys

User survey 1 - Views, preferences, and familiarity with online content monetization: Our survey results included a few interesting insights. First, we found that people generally underestimate the amount that content creators receive from platforms such as YouTube, hinting at a general low familiarity with the details of online content monetization and perhaps in general. Second, we found that, overall, people like the Coil model for dividing subscription fees between creators based on the time spent on each article or video. Interestingly, people from underrepresented groups showed greater support for models in which the money is distributed evenly between the creators, reflecting a more significant appreciation for equality and a dislike of potentially discriminating models. Third, perhaps unsurprisingly, our results showed that people dislike paying for subscriptions and would rather see ads in exchange for content. This suggests that attempts to shift people from free ad-based models to subscription fees and vice versa require time and re-education of users.

User survey 2 - Ideological considerations in content consumption: This survey focused on users’ value-related considerations in content consumption choices. People reported making ideological and value-related considerations in their online content consumption choices - e.g., preferring to consume content from creators and platforms who share their values and beliefs and avoiding those who do not. This was true across the political preferences scale but less so for “centrists”. Notably, people also reported that they see online content consumption as a way of supporting creators and causes they care about. Lastly, we found that when it comes to content by people from historically marginalized groups, its reception is very much dependent on users’ political preferences. While most democrats reported that it is important to them to consume content by people from historically underrepresented groups, republicans were significantly less likely to agree with this statement.

Experiments

We ran experiments to study how monetization awareness affects consumption choices and how it changes users’ preferences between different sources or creators. We were also interested in the effect of the contexts of the browsing scenario and whether it is political or not. Our experimental design included a simulated YouTube search results page, in which we tracked users’ choice of video given each scenario and whether or not they were in the treatment group (which included a manipulation to increase users’ monetization awareness).

Study 1: In the first study, we examined the effect of monetization awareness on users’ choice between mainstream media and non-profit organizations and as a factor of their political affiliation. The context used in this study was gun regulation - highly politically polarizing. The main result from the experiment shows that increasing users’ awareness of the monetization of online content affects their consumption choices. The percentage of people who chose to watch a video from a non-profit organization (vs. from a mainstream media outlet) doubled when users’ monetization awareness was high (from 24.8% in the control group to 48.4% in the treatment group).

Study 2: In the second study, we tested the effects in a politically neutral context (i.e., disability rights) and with different types of video sources, this time comparing mainstream media news outlets with independent creators and activists (“vloggers”). The results show that preference for the videos by independent vloggers and activists increased from 45.9% in the control condition to 60.6% in the treatment condition, providing additional support to our hypotheses that monetization awareness leads to more mindful content consumption choices.

Overall, we find that awareness of monetization leads users to update their choices. Monetization aware users prefer to consume content from non-profit organizations or independent creators and activists over that of mainstream media outlets and see their content consumption as a means to support creators. As one of the participants in our studies explained: “I chose the video that interested me the most and I also chose the video from a smaller creator because I would like for them to get the money from the ad, if possible.”

Overall, we find that awareness of monetization leads users to update their choices. Monetization aware users prefer to consume content from non-profit organizations or independent creators and activists over that of mainstream media outlets and see their content consumption as a means to support creators. As one of the participants in our studies explained: “I chose the video that interested me the most and I also chose the video from a smaller creator because I would like for them to get the money from the ad, if possible.”

This is good news for people considering adopting the Web Monetization model, especially for those promoting ideological and social causes - such as activists and non-profit organizations. Based on our results, it is recommended that content creators who would like to attract and encourage the support of their followers will take action to increase users’ awareness of the monetization process that supports creators and the causes they promote. Therefore, the “monetization awareness” boost that comes with Coil, on top of all of its other benefits, makes it an excellent solution for creators, grassroots initiatives, and activists operating online.

Communications and marketing

As noted above, we have shared our studies, findings, and insights with the community in blog posts. We have also discussed and presented our work in academic seminars and forums. We are very excited to share that we will present our studies at the upcoming Interledger Summit in New Orleans. We also intend to submit our study to relevant academic conferences, workshops, and publications.

What’s next?

Our studies so far have uncovered interesting aspects of the effects of monetization visibility and awareness on users’ behavior. However, we believe there is still much to study in this area. We are also curious to see the next directions the community and technology take and will continue to follow and study it from our perspective.
What community support would benefit your project?
We are very open to corporations with other community members. If you are a team working on implementing web monetization on your platforms (or already web monetization implemented) and are interested in understanding your users’ behavior better, we would love to help!

Additional comments

We want to thank the entire Grant for the Web team, especially Ayesha, Chris, and Erika, for all the help and support along the way. This has been a great experience and opportunity for us!

Sharing Funds - Sharing Values? - Grant Report #1

Lior Zalmanson — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 20:02:27 +0000

Project Update

In this project, we continue our work on the effects of online content monetization models on user behavior. Building on our previous findings, we now explore how different monetization models, and the level of users’ awareness of the monetization model, affect their content consumption choices.
We are interested in studying if users who adopt Web Monetization become more aware and mindful consumers. We are especially interested in learning whether such users become more socially conscious and use their content consumption to support causes and initiatives close to their hearts.

Progress on objectives

Literature survey of relevant scientific streams:
Our first objective is the literature survey. The literature survey is the base for our theoretical framework and informs the design of our surveys and experiments. Moreover, we believe that it could be of relevance to other members of the community and inform and inspire further discussions and ideas.

Our review begins with research on online activism. First, we examine what online activism is, the advantages of activism online, the challenges that need to be overcome, and why we see the Web Monetization protocol as a potential solution to some of them. We then turn to look at relevant theories from behavioral, cognitive and social psychology and create an initial theoretical framework of the relationship between online activism and Web Monetization.

Survey #1 - Online media literacy, consumption, and preferences:
Our objectives for this survey were:

Assess “online monetization literacy” - awareness and familiarity with various aspects of the monetization of online content.
Survey preferences for monetization models across different types of online content (online news, video streaming, video platforms, blogs).
Examine whether people make ideological and values-related considerations in their online content consumption choices.
Study the effect of increased awareness of monetization in online content platforms.
Study if and how the above points (and especially 3) interact with peoples’ identities (gender, race, sexual orientation, political and ideological views).

Key activities

Literature survey
We have completed the first version of the literature survey. However, we view this as an ongoing process that will continue to evolve as our study progresses.

Survey #1 - Initial results highlights
Our survey of 150 Americans has revealed several interesting points:

People are mindful of the values of content creators and websites. Above 75% of the participants agreed that they choose to consume content by creators who share their own values and on websites that reflect those values. Additionally, approximately half of the participants reported that they may avoid visiting websites that support values they disagree with.
Most people see online content consumption as a way of showing support to causes. Over 75% of the participants indicated that when reading articles and watching videos online, they feel that they show support to the creators and the causes they promote. Those are encouraging results that provide initial support to our hypothesis that web monetization may act as a way by which people support activists, causes, and initiatives.
Many people are looking for content by people from historically marginalized groups. Approximately 40% of the people in the survey indicated that it is important to them to consume content created by people from historically marginalized groups. This is great news for activists and content creators from those groups.
People support the coil / web-monetization model of distributing funds between creators.
We asked people to choose between four different models to distribute the money that goes to the content creators from YouTube Premium subscriptions. As shown in the below figure, nearly 75% supported the two options by which funds are distributed between the creators whose videos the user watches. Moreover, the “Coil compatible” option, by which funds are distributed based on the time spent watching the videos, received the most votes.

Communication and marketing

So far, we have presented our work, research questions, and ideas mainly in academic environments. We had the pleasure of hosting Chris Lawrence for a joint seminar at the Cornel Tech campus in NYC to discuss web monetization. We will continue to post reports of our surveys and experiments results to the forum. In the longer run, when we plan to submit the results of our research to relevant conferences, workshops, and publications.

What’s next?

We have a lot of exciting things going on right now. We are currently working on further analysis of the survey’s results and will release a full report to the blog. In parallel, we also work on our next survey, which will build on and extend the results of the first. We are most excited about the development of an experimental setting that is now coming together. This will allow us to test the causal relationships between web monetization, online content consumption choices, users’ values, and their willingness to provide additional support to causes and initiatives. We will also continue developing and updating our literature survey and theoretical framework as we learn more about the mechanism.

What community support would benefit your project?

We would love to learn more about the experiences of independent content creators and activists who experiment with integrating web monetization into their websites, platforms, or products. We are very open to ideas of field experiments and testing various operationalizations of web monetization and their effects on users’ behavior.

Effect of Monetization Visibility on User Behavior — Final Grant Report

Lior Zalmanson — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 21:58:39 +0000

Project Update

Our project explored "How does the visibility of the micropayment counter affect user behavior?." In the last few months, we have executed multiple experiments to study the effects of displaying a counter on users' level of willingness to fund the content maker.

Why counters, in the first place?
The project stemmed from the need to address the current challenges of content creators to attract and retain users and make their content work sustainable.

In a trend called "creator economy," creators currently develop monetization strategies in the hppes of covering their costs and allowing them to continue creating high-quality content.

We decided to rethink the different relationships content makers can foster with their community/individual users. Moreover, we asked what is the role of UX features in developing such relationships.

We focused on counters, UX widgets that traditionally have showcased number of viewers/funds, as means to both convey the content makers' popularity (or their need) and attract users' contributions.

The experiments help explain whether and how a content creators should disclose the income made from content by utilizing various counter widgets.

We are happy to report that we (Denisa Kera Reshef, Yotam Liel, and I) have gathered exciting and relevant insights to benefit the web monetization community. We have been reporting them often through the blog of Denisa Kera

Denisa Reshef KeraFollow

philosopher and designer interested in RegTech: how to implement ethical and regulatory guidelines into various infrastructures https://github.com/anonette/lithopia

In what follows, we will elaborate on our goals (original and new), findings, and plans.

Progress on objectives

Our original objectives/goals were to study the effects of the visibility of the micropayment counter, explore the UX challenges of sharing information of payment streams over the counter, improve the design and utilization of the counter for UX and define the future structure and technological challenges of
interaction over the micropayment counter.

We believe that we have been able through our experimentation to find out the effects of multiple counters strategies on users' contributions as well as explore UX challenges (including the decisions when and how to use them) to come up with actionable plans for newbie/more successful content makers.

In other words, our research period was primarily focused on learning 'which counter works the best and when'?

To do so, we added two mini-goals along the way. The first was to to develop a taxonomy around different user personas based on their reaction to content makers' contribution requests.
The second was coming up with a framework for different counter approaches based on the relationship models originally proposed by anthropologist Alan Fiske (more on this under "activities" below).

To reach comparable results, we narrowed down the scope of our research to requests that come after the first encounter with a specific content/content creator. This focus was due to our methodology (online controlled experiments) that cannot fully replicate the nuance of content maker-fan base behavior across time.

Key activities (and insights)

Interviewing the Fairmint start-up and learning best practices: We incorporated in preparation for our studies, experience from the fairmint company, and the manner in which they have been incorporating the visibility of 'numbers' while avoiding the issue of pure vanity metrics

User survey: Our first step included running a survey on users' perception of counters and contributions. The survey reflected that people are significantly influenced by the current support, visible through a counter. When a maker requests users' donation for content they have enjoyed, the odds that those users will donate depends on how much money the content maker already made from the content. If content makers already attracted even hundreds in donations, odds become unlikely that they will also agree to sponsor that content. However, if the content has yet to earn any (or little) money for the creator, the willingness to pay is higher. If that sounds trivial, remember that past research in social psychology has shown how social proof (where you see others contributing...) is a great way to persuade others to follow suit. Our initial findings have contradicted that possibility. Moreover, we note that users who are also creators themselves tended to be more generous, hinting at a possible reciprocity effect.

Our findings from the survey have also helped us come up with a taxonomy of different user attitudes/personas concerning willingness to pay to online creators

Modelling counters using Fiske's Relational Models: as we noted, Fiske’s four modes of relationships (or RM’s – relational models) can help us understand how web monetization widgets and counters can express different social relations - Utilizing Fiske's models as a framework has allowed us to differentiate between different counter types.
For instance:
tip/gift without expecting anything in return: counter performing the generosity of content maker/stakeholder?
tribute and loyalty, gesture, tradition: counter - showing what a group of users likes & comparing commitment?
balanced, quid-pro-quo exchange: counter comparing what you give/gain from the community?

First set of experiments: We ran experiments that tested three types of counters: counters that display monetary funds, time spent, and the number of viewers, using different prompts that convey different relational models. Our results included exciting insights. For instance, the relative benefit of using a counter to display time spent on creating videos and working on content making (as well as time spent by users watching the videos) as a way to increase users' support. Money counters (displaying how much money contributed thus far did not draw as much support).

Second set of experiments: For the second set of experiments, we had people donate 'real money' to the content maker to increase experiment realism. Plus, we embedded dynamic counters in the videos themselves. These counters showcased a positive trend in the number of viewers (eyeballs) or funds (in USD). We compared it to a case where no counters were showed at all. We were surprised that the 'no counter' scenario fared the best. We then realized this is due to a similar phenomenon we noted in the survey in which users are mentally accounting 'how much the content maker is in need?'. In such a case, a counter showing an ongoing positive trend in funds lowers the wish of the focal viewer to contribute themselves. A positive trend of viewers yielded better results when compared with the money counter. It seems that content makers should utilize counters in the early stages of fundraising when the counter can visualize a clear need. In later stages, such visible success can indeed harm the attempt to raise more funds.

Communications and marketing

As we noted above, we made sure to communicate our findings live to the web monetization community. Throughout the research period, we have also participated in Mozzfest and discussed the research at a special episode of PowerPlays, a podcast by fellow grantee Ayden Ferdeline.

What’s next?

Counters can work great (in some cases, as we reported) to raise support for content makers. However, they are also part of a trend in which content makers are more transparent about their earnings and success (for better or worse). We would love to go beyond counters and examine how transparency of different kinds advocated by content makers can improve sustainability and communal relationships.

What community support would benefit your project?

We enjoyed testing counters in controlled environments, but we would love now to see how community members operate "in the wild" when they wish to include some visibility to their monetization procedures. We want to hear the community members' experience with counters and with revealing to your audience key metrics about your success. We are here for your dilemmas, best practices, and content wisdom.

Additional comments

This research opportunity has been such a tremendous experience, and we were happy to find a vibrant community of fellow web monetization enthusiasts here. Especially we wish to thank team Akita for their input and guidance as well as well as to Rashon Massey and the Micopeia project for providing the content for our experimentations.

Special thanks goes to Coil and Grant for the Web team (Ayesha, Chris, and Erika and the entire team) for their ongoing support and kind words.