GateLive AMA Recap-Joystream

Can you briefly describe the vision behind Joystream and what it is?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
The goal of the protocol is to unlock development of new video experiences that connect creators and consumers in deeper ways.

Today, this happens in one way, on one mega platform, namely YouTube.

Our vision is instead for there to be one public and open protocol upon which a variety of experiences can be permissionlessly built upon by app developers.

This vision is really built on three assumptions
1) The most difficult problem all content and social media focused developers face is the cold start problem of building a network. Many have ideas for great features, but without content and users, nothing works.

2) Developers will have the confidence to build and invest in an infrastructure they know will always be open and available - which blockchains offer., unlike the permissioned APIs that a web2 platform would offer.

We have seen countless example in web2 history where a platform,such as Facebook or Twitter, at first invites developers to build on their platform, but then later down the platform ends up competing with or restricting access for developers.

3) There is a rich design space which is currently very underexplored.There are really multiple dimensions to this space, and currently with YouTube we are sitting in one singular spot in this space for all 2B MAU and 50M creators using it.

Content Vertical: UI & Features;Algorithmic Recommendations; Moderation & Community Guidelines; Monetization.

Can you describe how the Joystream protocol works, what are the different components and actors?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
Open data layer for content, creators, profiles and social data
new web3 native monetization and financing capabilities through video NFTs and social tokens.

1.A content storage and delivery infrastructure operated by network members

2.A DAO for funding creators, developers infrastructure and for making decisions around policy and upgrades.

3.A suite of open source applications, standards and templates reduce the cost of getting started

Can you tell us about your current level of traction and the strategy behind your go-to-market strategy for growing Joystream?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
Today the biggest application built on top of Joystream is called Gleev, and can be found at Gleev.xyz, through Gleev and other applications

Stats:
-700K Videos
-17K Creators
-40K on-chain member accounts
-Growing 5-10% weekly pats few months

Core is YPP:
-Bronze
-Silver
-Gold
-Diamond

All types of content, gaming, vlogging and crypto are top categories.

Who is the target audience for Joystream?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
We have three audiences: Creators, Builders, Consumers.We are attacking them in that order

Can you talk a little bit about the native token, JOY, for you blockchain, perhaps touching on what function it serves, and its economic properties?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
1.Flexible supply, no explicit cap: about 4% total inflation in the first year.
2.Mint & burn token model
3.Consumer Utility
-Content Features: publishing, commenting, nfts+creator tokens
-Staking
-Governance
4.Economics
(1)Mints
-Validators & stakers: pay for security
-DAO workers: council, working groups, workers… e.g. storage, bandwidth, builders, marketing….
-Creators rewards
-App rewards
-Spending proposals
(2)Burn
-L1 tx fee burn, similar to Ethereum EIP1559.
-Video NFT auctions/sales.
-Creator Tokens public sales or AMM sales fee.

Can you tell us a bit about how creators can monetize their content on Joystream?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
Creator Rewards: Two Web3 native forms which are exciting

On Youtube: Not monetize, mainly adds, video NFTs, 1-1 NFT issuable for each video by the channel owner, revenue from sales & royalties, we are Non-speculative utility.

CRT: creator issued fungible token for their channel, captures value from nft sales & council payouts & tips, built in public sale, built in AMM, built in vesting schedules and access control.

How different: Lack of native value driver, lack of vesting & permissioned access, lack of a native social application to drive value, most focuses on use cases where creation is not capital, twitter/blogging or nothing, video is very capital intensive.

So Web3 social media is vertical which is early, but where we see increased activity, can you speak to how you are positioned in that space?

Bedeho Mender (Co-Founder of Joystream):
So there are a few buckets
1.Mistakenly included: Livepeer & Theta
2.Data Focused: Lens & Cyberconnect & strength (more mature application ecosystem, earlier to market focusing on this specifically).

Here difference is
(1)Vertical integration:
-Data ledger
-Data storage - who pays?
-Data delivery - who pays?
-Creator monetization: nfts, creator tokens, governance payouts

(2)Focus on video
-Go to market; network effect; products
-Tooling, applications, metadata standard

(3)Focus on governance!!
-Important for long term
-Upgradability
-Early attempts - skip
-DTube & LBRY
-No governance - who pays for data
-Not focused on being developer platforms, more single app experiences