Well, I should have been a bit more
specific what I meant by ending my
participation in this discussion.

I think I felt into the trap of responding
to some degenerate idiot exclusively.
[I won't respond to onix in the future]

This is in my honest opinion not the
most productive way of spending my time.
But the times where I passionately drew
and got ripped off left some 'bitterness'
deep inside my rotten little soul.
This bitterness is easily brought to the
surface by reading threads like this.

At least I got some of my points across
and even if it was done in a rough way,
I collected some points for spectacle ;)
[Thanks @ Reg]

The Message that I really should bring
to the artists, reading this discussion
is:

A]
'Fans'/'Followers'/'likes' do not yield
any immediate value that solves RL issues.
Money does.
Social Media and associated companies try
to sell the idea of the 'value' of
'social currency' and many people believe
in that idea.
Unless you are able to transform Followers
and fans
into paying customers, the only thing you
get out of them is attention/exposure
to eventually get displayed to potential
customers.
Followers and Fans are CHEAP and they should
be treated accordingly.
EG:
If you put your work out there for free,
exposing it to the public, make sure,
that your name/contact is resistent.
BIIIG WATERMARKS, containing your contact,
'censoring' 'interesting' parts of your
Image etc, even if the 'fans' will hate you
for doing so.
BECAUSE:
Your 'Fans' will rip off your piece,
modify it and post it all across the web.

REALTALK:
Two days ago I stumbled across an Image,
Which seemingly was a commission posted by
the commissioner (not by the artist).
There must have been the artists' signature
in the bottom right corner, but the
person who posted this went through the
troubles of pulling the file into PS and
putting a black bar over the artists' sig.

DIS-FUCKING-GUSTING!

Clearly I was interested in contacting that
specific artist, because I knew:
'Hellya… I can sell that kind of stuff!'


People want numbers:
Given the ratio of the Image, The fact that
I found one further (also black-bar-censored)
drawing by seemingly the same artist, I
could estimate that I would spend approx
1.500USD per Image and that I would like
to have about six of them for the beginning.
BUT… NOPE, because of some 'FAN-BITCH'
went through the troubles disguising the
only hint on the artist.

BOTTOMLINE:
As an Artist, make sure this will not happen
to you. If your 'fans' do not like that
you efficiently tag your images, SHIT on their
opinion, because your fans will shit on you
as soon there is the opportunity to do so.

Only put works of yours public, If it serves
your OWN purpose of exposure/self-promotion.
Do not fall into the trap of believing that
you as an artist should 'serve' your 'fans'.
Your 'fans' won't serve you either.
FUCK THE FANS.

B]
Paywalling, especially patreon-style does
not cut it.
It is too cheap.
It is not savage enough.
Patreon has proven to do a VERY BAD JOB
in protecting the artist from piracy due
to flaws in the subscription system and
due to the lack of understanding of what kind
of customer is valuable to the artist.
Catering arts to the masses has never proven
to be a good concept unless you have that
strong of an influence that you can
viciously enforce copyright laws and hunt
down people who break copyright laws.

Money is not the problem, but the solution.
Money can act as a gatekeeper.
I have seen paywalls that were massive/costly
enough to effectively keep out every
average joe.
(I will discuss the difference between the
avg. joe and the above-average ppl. next point.)


C]
The avg. Joe VS wealthy James:
The average Joe's biggest concern is MONEY.
The wealthy James' biggest concern is TIME.

The average Joe has, especially on the web,
proven that he can come up with very
sophisticated methods/ideas to overcome
his lack of commercial power and to screw
other people over.
Just google about yiff[dot]party.
Imagine some poor ugly fat motherfucker
sitting in his basement, investing all the
time, all the effort just to put up a
website that specializes on ripping off
paywalled patreon content, ending up in
begging for donations to keep the site alive,
because that cheap-ass son of a B*** can't
afford to pay 160Bucks out of his own
pocket.
Wealthy James would most likely not do
something like that.
-Because it sucks.
-Because it costs time.

BOTTOMLINE:
The ingenuity, the time and effort the
average Joe is willing to invest in the act
of getting stuff for free/cheap
is remarkable.
Would average Joe invest the same ingenuity,
time and effort in his life/career,
he WOULD BE wealthy James.
WOULD HE BE wealthy James, he would not
bother about shortcutting/screwing other
ppl because it would cost too much time.

For an artist, whose intention it is to
profit from his/her skillset it is simply
not a viable option to cater the avg. Joe/
the masses, because the masses will always
come up with new ways to fuck the artist
over because of their lack of money and the
abundance of time on their hands.

A crowd of thousands of 'fans' is not able
to feed their artists,
while a handful of customers can.

D]
Artists, do your homework.
Overthink your business strategies, risk a look at
upcoming technologies.
I know that wrapping your head around the whole topic
of business/marketing sucks… especially if it costs
time you could spend creating the ideas that are in your
head which you are afraid of loosing.
But the time you put into ramping up your game is time
well spend.

Advancements especially in blockchain technology may
sooner or later, but surely in the nearer future
could provide a solution to the problem of ownership
of artworks.
I've seen (very early staged) prototypes of blockchain
networks accessible with special desktop/mobile clients
which disable most of functionalities of the user taking
screenshots, copying an image in other ways etc.
Essentially, if you do not own the image according to
some smart contract defined in the bl-chain network,
you cannot see the image.
Impressive.
I like the idea.

—————————————————
OF COURSE…
… there are artists out there, that do not want to
monetize their work and like the idea of not working
for money.
This is a totally valid and very acceptable point of
view.
But it has to be the artist's decision what he/she does
with his/her works.
Taking this ability of self-determination away simply
because some undereducated manchild believes to be
entitled to something he doesn't own is wrong and
will have consequences.
—————————————————
OF COURSE…
… I not posting this because I am purely altruistic.
I have my own personal reasons for doing what I do.
One of them is, that I am a very savage person and I
really like the taste of the tears that all the entitled
manchild motherfuckers will cry as soon as the game
changes to their disadvantage, RIPPING AWAY the 'RIGHT'
for having nice things for free, they aren't worthy
possessing.

I really love to see especially those communist minded
unworthy useless people burn in the flames they ignited
totally by themselves, smelling across
the ocean that these bitches are already 'well done'.
DINNER IS SERVED.

MUHAHA… I am most likely a very unlikeable person.
But I am good at it.

Also, I am, as I already hinted always bouncing the
web, searching for artists, willing to cooperate.
—————————————————-



Enjoy your Meal.