Some may have gotten the idea from a previous post that I’m anti-platform. That couldn’t be further from the truth, I think platforms play an important role in this ecosystem in the same way that galleries play an important role in the traditional art world. But actively playing that role is important, and platforms that do nothing except take a portion of an artists sales are as worthless as galleries that do the same. So I wanted to spend a little time detailing a bit more what I want to see from platforms, and where they can add value as opposed to just taking it.
First and foremost let me direct you to a detailed comparison chart a few friends and I made between the top 30 or so platforms that are live right now, that can be found at NFTART.LOL. At the bottom of that page are links to several more comparisons that other people have put together some of which include platforms I didn’t. I also didn’t include at least 20 platforms that haven’t launched yet, or another 30 or so that I was promised are “in the works.” My point is that there are a lot, A LOT, of platforms and people making platform plays. In most cases each one is a little different, in one or two cases people couldn’t tell me why their idea was any different. And in most of these cases the platform plans to take a % of the sale (often between 2% and 30%), so understanding what the platforms are and aren’t doing is important before you decide to cut them in to your sales.
Now, if there was only one or two platforms and they were doing something no one else could do that would be enough, but that’s clearly not the case. And as you see from dumplingpets.com and fake.sale there’s no need to even have a platform – those aren’t white labeled solutions, they are writing the contracts themselves which I’ll talk more about later – but lets talk about where the value add with platforms is.
Discoverability. If you are an artist putting things out into the world, chances are you want people to see them and if you don’t have an audience already then posting things on a platform can help. This is the default benefit across all the platforms right now, though obviously it’s better with some than others. OpenSea for example has a massive user base, but also a fairly dysfunctional search and classification system so the chances of someone who wasn’t already looking for your art stumbling across it on OpenSea is fairly slim. Other sites like MakersPlace and Foundation don’t have a search per se, but instead have many different ways they sort and classify both artists and artworks so a collector looking for something similar to what you are doing has a better chance of finding you. Again, this varies from site to site, so be sure to spend time on the site you plan to list on. It’s helpful to go to a site without a plan, and just click around and see what you find and where it leads you – if you end up seeing work you like, that’s a good sign. If you end up scrolling through lots of work that isn’t really you thing, that’s probably the experience others are having too.
Promotion. While discoverability is largely passive, this more likely requires the conscious involvement of someone at the platform. This would be anything the platform is actively doing to promote the art or artist. Obviously it would be unrealistic for any platform to do everything for everyone, so this is largely a tiered situation where more is going to be done for one person and less for someone else. Those “more” situations are probably happening thanks to a prior agreement or arrangement. On the low end this could be retweeting announcement posts to the platform’s main twitter account. It could be something like pushing the art up to a “featured” position on the website for some period of time, or including it in a weekly emails or announcements. On the higher end, some platforms are taking an even bigger step and cultivating relationships with collectors who they are then introducing to artists via group video calls or even 1 on 1 chats. This gets into the kind of thing that artists would often hope galleries would do for them, and it demonstrates a desire to actually help out the artist (because even if the artist sells something elsewhere, if the collector they have a relationship with is interested they will likely follow), where as platforms who intentionally try to stay in between artists and collectors are probably more looking out for themselves. It should go without saying that in the long run looking out for artists is a much better plan, it should – but there are no shortage of short sighted plays being attempted in this ballpark.
Advice. This gets overlooked a lot, even by platforms themselves who often try to shuffle artists off to discord servers or clubhouse rooms hoping for “the community” to manage it which isn’t bad but also isn’t great. As people who are dealing with this market every single day, the platforms have an incredible amount of information that can be useful for artists planning next steps. And while best practices and things to avoid can be universal, thinking of artists in a one size fits all manor is also a mistake. The platforms that have people who can spend time with individual artists talking about their work, their goals, and their future plans are incredibly valuable and I personally think this is an area were most should spent a little more money on bringing in a few more people to really help develop those relationships. And relating to the previous point, developing a trusted relationship with an artist is a much better approach to retention than playing gatekeeper with collectors.
Community. I hope I didn’t give the impression in that last point that community isn’t worthwhile – far from it! Especially for early career artists, finding a supportive community can be life changing. This is one of the things I’ve been most excited about in lurking around the NFT space over the last few months, the community support, generosity and encouragement is unparalleled. And the platforms that are working to help foster that get big ups. Compare OpenSea to Foundation for example – Foundation has recurring “happy hour” clubhouse rooms where anyone can come and just hang out, the staff is super responsive to emails and messages on social media, while OpenSea just directs everyone to their Discord server which is nearing 45k members, many of who are begging for help or asking questions and there’s rarely a useful reply from anyone at OpenSea, and the team is unresponsive to emails and social media inquiries. (Granted this is just my observation and experience – I have accounts on both sites and I think there are pros and cons to what each is doing, but on this community issue it’s very clearly something Foundation has prioritized and seems to be something OpenSea has ignored.) Big picture – if you care about people who are using your site and work to find ways to help them work together with each other, that’s a good direction to aim for.
Support. Since I mentioned it, this is big. If you as an artist have a problem with something on the site, is there a way for you to get it addressed? A problem could be a technical issue, it could a conflict with another user or a case of infringement. It could be a mixup with a payment or a question about how something is being promoted or future plans. If there is a contact available to you that is responsive that is very good, if there’s just some help docs or a “community forum” that’s not so good. If I have a problem on a site and I can’t get anyone to help me, I have to seriously ask myself what value they are offering me to justify the money I’m giving them from my sales.
And that’s the crux of it really – when we are talking about justifying a % of sales these things are important. These are a very clear value add and if done correctly can provide a lot of benefit to artists using those platforms. Conversely, for the platforms that are not prioritizing these things I would suggest they should reconsider their model and perhaps move to a flat monthly subscription fee or something. I’d rather pay $5 or $10 a month and get no services than give a % of every sale I make in exchange for no services. But that’s just me.
To circle back to the issue I brought up earlier, there is no need for platforms. They are not required. But depending on what you are trying to do, they can be very useful and working together with the right platform can be mutually beneficial. But knowing what the “right” platform for you is requires thinking about what you are trying to do, and identifying which issues are important to you and then finding the platform that aligns with those needs. I write posts like this with the genuine hope that it inspires platforms to be better, to reflect on what they are doing (or not doing) and take steps to improve the weak spots. And if not, at least it gives artists better questions to ask. Platforms being better is good for everyone, so I hope this helps push things in that direction.
I’ve said this publicly a few times recently but there is an absolute flood of platforms right now and I don’t expect all the ones we are seeing today to still be standing in a year. Maybe not even in 6 months. Take a look at this post my friend Jonathan Mann wrote just 3 years ago where he compares the 4 major NFT platforms at the time, only one of those still exists. I think we’re going to see some platforms absorb/buy others, some pivot away to a more niche area they can focus on with less competition, and some simply collapse. Which ones remains be seen, but anyone who has seen these cycles play out time and time again can see the direction this is going. It’s going to be a fun ride, grab the popcorn and buckle up.