Will blockchain technology enable photographers to come back to business?

Dear all,

Internet is a part of my life - maybe even the most important since about 2000 (the year I found my wife through the internet ;-) ).

I am glad to have the forum here, I was at a couple of foums and learned a lot ( alot of forums don't exist anymore).

Our family does not have TV - but we have computers in almost every room and we spend a lot of time online.

The good thing is: internet is free and we can grow and learn from all over the world for free.

The bad thing is: the internet is free and ideas and information almost get rid of worth and value as it is free. A lot of people lost their jobe because of the internet - and a lot of photographers are affected, too.

I just see this video which is a talk with Georg Gilder about blockchain technology.


From this my question arises: Is blockchain an option for photographers to get paid for their work? Is this technology already available for photographers?

How do you think about this technology?

Just a word about this technology: Blockchain is an option to set something like an individual watermark to your product - and somebody who is interested in it can buy it and transfer the money over blockchain technology to give you the money for your photo.

Some people think about using blockchain to market art:

https://www.artnome.com/news/2018/7/21/art-world-meet-blockchain

Why not create a technology to include an individual number to a photo-file (don't know if JPG would already give us the options) - maybe we could even limit the numbers of copies of a single file like graphic artists do it with their work. Blockchain technology could sing our work individually and also give us the technology for a simple transfer of money.

Here is a nice website with ideas how to use this technology for a small company (and why not for a big one, too):


I am sure this technology - like every technology - has its pros and cons.

Who do you think about it? Do you have any experience with it?

Best regards

Holger

If you need tutorials and videos to explain to potential customers how to pay you seems like you've already lost that customer.

If I show up on your website and want to buy something and I have to learn how to pay you or research it to see if it's safe, I'm moving on to someplace else that takes a secure credit card payment.

And... the internet is not free.

I’ve done my own research of blockchain technology and in my educated opinion, it still has a long way to go to prove its usefulness. There are a lot of claims about this technology which I believe are false. Here is just a few to keep it short because I can write a book on this subject.

Claim #1: blockchain is extremely secure. Well, just look this snap from last week news, read the title at the top right. Does it sound very secure?



Claim #2: blockchain cannot be manipulated, replicated, etc. The truth is, over two thousand new blockchain platforms were created between February and May of this year alone !!! (The time when I was conducting my research). It is easily relacable.

Claim #3: blockchain is not controlled by any individual organization. It is already recognized that using personal computers to maintain blockchain ledger is not efficient, so in most cases it is done by a handful of professional “miners” who accumulate tremendous leverage to be able to dictate the rules, or the idea of miners is being abandoned completely - the majority of new versions of blockchain are controlled by individual companies.

Sorry, I have to run, otherwise I could continue on and on. To repeat, I am not dismissing blockchain entirely, it is just we are not there yet to figure out the best way of using it.

Where do you live that the internet is free? Not the case in the part of the USA I live in. But TV is free. My internet is expensive.

tcg550 said:

If you need tutorials and videos to explain to potential customers how to pay you seems like you've already lost that customer.

If I show up on your website and want to buy something and I have to learn how to pay you or research it to see if it's safe, I'm moving on to someplace else that takes a secure credit card payment.

Click to expand...

I'll chime in. Let's say "if blockchain becomes popular enough that a majority of people use it (say, like CC cards or PayPal are now) than Blockchain's low-cost-but-secure method "marking" images" would lower the barrier for selling prints. As opposed to selling physical prints."

tcg550 said:

And... the internet is not free.

Click to expand...

This is multi-faceted. First "free as in speech or free as in beer?" Which is also multi-faceted. "Free speech" is increasingly limited on the Internet. If enough people disapprove of what you are saying or doing, then you'll find that no ISP will host your content. And you'll lose your domain. And nobody will process your payments.

But if you are unoffensive enough, then yes, you are free.

"Free beer" mean cost. You have to pay an ISP to connect to the Internet. You also have to pay for hosting your content. And (not knowing anything about blockchain) you'd most likely have to pay some fee for blockchain processing.

With all this aside, then selling photos on the Internet is certainly freer and cheaper than before the Internet existed.

Wayne

tcg550 said:

If you need tutorials and videos to explain to potential customers how to pay you seems like you've already lost that customer.

If I show up on your website and want to buy something and I have to learn how to pay you or research it to see if it's safe, I'm moving on to someplace else that takes a secure credit card payment.

And... the internet is not free.

Click to expand...

I know there is a way to sell content on the internet - and some newspapers have paywalls to sell their content - but generally speaking most content of the internet is free. We pay with our data and the willingness to see some advertisements.

Some people got their jobs as there is something like the internet - but you will also find people who lost thier jobs because of the internet. And if I look at photographers my impression is that more of them lost their jobs than those who found their jobs because there is an internet the way we have it today.

I like it to have most of the information for free - but when I realize that all my learning and improving my knowledge and skills will lead into a situation that I have to give the fruits of this knowledge and information for free, too I realize a problem that it is hard to get an econimical foundation for my life from it. It's like a blessing and a spell at the same time.

If the blockchain technology is not yet available in a clear and simple way it does not meant that it could be a part of our world the same way the internet is part of our lives, today.

Don't get me wrong: I am not a "fan" of blockchain technologies. The option to keep information in a very limited community is almost the opposite of the most attractive idea of the internet to me: the option for almost every person on the world to become an expert on the themes he like - or even an universal genius with knowledge in almost everything. This gives us the option to gather the people of the world to one intellectual unit with a power we never had before - with the option to spread the fruits of eduaction into any country. But if it does not feed the people at the same time, the idea has a major problem.

Best regards

Holger

Wayne Larmon said:

tcg550 said:

If you need tutorials and videos to explain to potential customers how to pay you seems like you've already lost that customer.

If I show up on your website and want to buy something and I have to learn how to pay you or research it to see if it's safe, I'm moving on to someplace else that takes a secure credit card payment.

Click to expand...

I'll chime in. Let's say "if blockchain becomes popular enough that a majority of people use it (say, like CC cards or PayPal are now) than Blockchain's low-cost-but-secure method "marking" images" would lower the barrier for selling prints. As opposed to selling physical prints."
Wayne

Click to expand...

Who's the governing body when a customer disputes something? Who's the governing body when whatever blockchain mechanism doesn't transfer my money? Does it even transfer money that I can use to make my house payment or will my mortgage company or grocer accept blockchain payments?

As a customer how do I make a blockchain payment. Do I use my credit card?

It may eventually take off but I suspect when it does, in order to convince people to use it, it will have to be safe, secure and some sort of customer service making the whole thing no better then credit cards.

VadymA said:

I’ve done my own research of blockchain technology and in my educated opinion, it still has a long way to go to prove its usefulness. There are a lot of claims about this technology which I believe are false. Here is just a few to keep it short because I can write a book on this subject.

Claim #1: blockchain is extremely secure. Well, just look this snap from last week news, read the title at the top right. Does it sound very secure?



Claim #2: blockchain cannot be manipulated, replicated, etc. The truth is, over two thousand new blockchain platforms were created between February and May of this year alone !!! (The time when I was conducting my research). It is easily relacable.

Claim #3: blockchain is not controlled by any individual organization. It is already recognized that using personal computers to maintain blockchain ledger is not efficient, so in most cases it is done by a handful of professional “miners” who accumulate tremendous leverage to be able to dictate the rules, or the idea of miners is being abandoned completely - the majority of new versions of blockchain are controlled by individual companies.

Sorry, I have to run, otherwise I could continue on and on. To repeat, I am not dismissing blockchain entirely, it is just we are not there yet to figure out the best way of using it.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your contribution! I have to say that blockchain is something I don't have much information about. I saw an advertisment of IBM on blockchain praising the options of making the origin of products visible to the customer. I saw the interview of the man who wrote the book about the world after google - and I felt like I should have more information about it. It is one of my attitudes to look at the options of new technolgies - and as a result I started this thread.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge about it. It's improtant to see that the technology is not that safe many people think.

Best regards

Holger

Holger Bargen said:

tcg550 said:

If you need tutorials and videos to explain to potential customers how to pay you seems like you've already lost that customer.

If I show up on your website and want to buy something and I have to learn how to pay you or research it to see if it's safe, I'm moving on to someplace else that takes a secure credit card payment.

And... the internet is not free.

Click to expand...

I know there is a way to sell content on the internet - and some newspapers have paywalls to sell their content - but generally speaking most content of the internet is free. We pay with our data and the willingness to see some advertisements.

Some people got their jobs as there is something like the internet - but you will also find people who lost thier jobs because of the internet. And if I look at photographers my impression is that more of them lost their jobs than those who found their jobs because there is an internet the way we have it today.

I like it to have most of the information for free - but when I realize that all my learning and improving my knowledge and skills will lead into a situation that I have to give the fruits of this knowledge and information for free, too I realize a problem that it is hard to get an econimical foundation for my life from it. It's like a blessing and a spell at the same time.

If the blockchain technology is not yet available in a clear and simple way it does not meant that it could be a part of our world the same way the internet is part of our lives, today.

Don't get me wrong: I am not a "fan" of blockchain technologies. The option to keep information in a very limited community is almost the opposite of the most attractive idea of the internet to me: the option for almost every person on the world to become an expert on the themes he like - or even an universal genius with knowledge in almost everything. This gives us the option to gather the people of the world to one intellectual unit with a power we never had before - with the option to spread the fruits of eduaction into any country. But if it does not feed the people at the same time, the idea has a major problem.

Best regards

Holger

Click to expand...

I pay 60 bucks a month at home and another 60 bucks a month per phone to get internet away from home.

Where do you live that it's free?

You like the free information available to you but you don't seem willing to give away your photos for free.

Bob A L said:

Where do you live that the internet is free? Not the case in the part of the USA I live in. But TV is free. My internet is expensive.

Click to expand...

In Germany wher I live TV costs money - and the reason why everybody has to pay for the internet, now is that you are able to see contents of the TV stations on the internet.

I also have to pay a fee to my internet provider - but this is less than the amount of money I had to pay for my telefone in times before the internet - and now my phone calls to conventional telephone numbers within the country are included.

The reason I was talking of a free internet is, that I don't have to pay for the content of webpages - with some exceptions.

I pay with the willingness to look at advertisements and the information someone may get to create a profile of my personality by gathering my behaving on the internet from the pages I watch at or the contributions I make in forums.

Best regards

Holger

tcg550 said:

Holger Bargen said:

tcg550 said:

If you need tutorials and videos to explain to potential customers how to pay you seems like you've already lost that customer.

If I show up on your website and want to buy something and I have to learn how to pay you or research it to see if it's safe, I'm moving on to someplace else that takes a secure credit card payment.

And... the internet is not free.

Click to expand...

I know there is a way to sell content on the internet - and some newspapers have paywalls to sell their content - but generally speaking most content of the internet is free. We pay with our data and the willingness to see some advertisements.

Some people got their jobs as there is something like the internet - but you will also find people who lost thier jobs because of the internet. And if I look at photographers my impression is that more of them lost their jobs than those who found their jobs because there is an internet the way we have it today.

I like it to have most of the information for free - but when I realize that all my learning and improving my knowledge and skills will lead into a situation that I have to give the fruits of this knowledge and information for free, too I realize a problem that it is hard to get an econimical foundation for my life from it. It's like a blessing and a spell at the same time.

If the blockchain technology is not yet available in a clear and simple way it does not meant that it could be a part of our world the same way the internet is part of our lives, today.

Don't get me wrong: I am not a "fan" of blockchain technologies. The option to keep information in a very limited community is almost the opposite of the most attractive idea of the internet to me: the option for almost every person on the world to become an expert on the themes he like - or even an universal genius with knowledge in almost everything. This gives us the option to gather the people of the world to one intellectual unit with a power we never had before - with the option to spread the fruits of eduaction into any country. But if it does not feed the people at the same time, the idea has a major problem.

Best regards

Holger

Click to expand...

I pay 60 bucks a month at home and another 60 bucks a month per phone to get internet away from home.

Where do you live that it's free?

Click to expand...

I was not thinking about the fee I have to pay to get into the internet in general but the usage of the content, to visit websites, to get inofrmation for free.

I have to pay for the internet and for me it is about 30 EUR a month for the provider and 17.50 EUR for TV. This TV fee goes to the national TV stations and a few month ago we did not have to pay it as we have no TV - but as nowadays you can also get the content from the TV stations through the internet they take the fee from everybody who has connection to the internet, too. This is the situation in Germany.

But there are also more and more cities and areas in cities where you have free WLAN.

Best regards

Holger

tcg550 said:

You like the free information available to you but you don't seem willing to give away your photos for free.

Click to expand...

Yes and no. I know I keep the rights on my photos I share here at dpreview - but it would no big problem for me if anybody uses them and does not pay me as I have a job I get the money from for my family. But I am not a photographer and I know that a lot of people sell less photos as people prefer to take free content from the internet - or steal them like if they would take my photos without asking.

It is nice to get things for free - but it is hard to see that the people who generate the content are not paid frim the generating of the content directly. Advertisements are a good way to generate money from contents on the internet - but we see more and more paper based newspapers dying - not because they have less readers but as they have less advertisment as everybody goes online.

As much as I like the idea of free content I would like to see an easy option to generate money from an internet content directly and not via advertisements.

Best regards

Holger

tcg550 said:

It may eventually take off but I suspect when it does, in order to convince people to use it, it will have to be safe, secure and some sort of customer service making the whole thing no better then credit cards.

Click to expand...

Not disagreeing with this--this is mostly what I said. But the OP also said that blockchain can be used as an anti-theft device for the images you sell. Credit cards don't do this.

Wayne

Wayne Larmon said:

tcg550 said:

It may eventually take off but I suspect when it does, in order to convince people to use it, it will have to be safe, secure and some sort of customer service making the whole thing no better then credit cards.

Click to expand...

Not disagreeing with this--this is mostly what I said. But the OP also said that blockchain can be used as an anti-theft device for the images you sell. Credit cards don't do this.

Wayne

Click to expand...

I'll admit I don't understand how blockchain could do that different but If I post a watermarked image on the internet and you give a credit card payment I'll give you the image without the watermark. If you want to steal and use the image with a watermark not sure how to stop that without just having physical prints available for purchase in a store with no internet sales.

Is the technology there to prevent someone from stealing an image using blockchain? Are we talking about a digital watermark of some sort?

I love new technology but this blockchain is confusing as all get out.

tcg550 said:

Wayne Larmon said:

tcg550 said:

It may eventually take off but I suspect when it does, in order to convince people to use it, it will have to be safe, secure and some sort of customer service making the whole thing no better then credit cards.

Click to expand...

Not disagreeing with this--this is mostly what I said. But the OP also said that blockchain can be used as an anti-theft device for the images you sell. Credit cards don't do this.

Wayne

Click to expand...

I'll admit I don't understand how blockchain could do that different but If I post a watermarked image on the internet and you give a credit card payment I'll give you the image without the watermark. If you want to steal and use the image with a watermark not sure how to stop that without just having physical prints available for purchase in a store with no internet sales.

Is the technology there to prevent someone from stealing an image using blockchain? Are we talking about a digital watermark of some sort?

I love new technology but this blockchain is confusing as all get out.

Click to expand...

Blockchain is not the same as Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology - but you can do much more with it. I am not an expert - but the main idea of blockchain is, giving things (contracts, bitcoins, graphical content) an individual code that is unique. You can use this technology for money transfer - but you can also mark products with it to document its origin. And why not giving your artistic graphics or photos this label and make them unique and for this reason much more valueable this way?

The great change for the photography business was digital cameras. And computers.

In the days of film and darkrooms there were more barriers to entry.

Not just the money to buy all the equipment, but the knowledge of how to create images. And the desire to work with paper and chemicals.

Images are far, far easier to create these days.

Holger Bargen said:

tcg550 said:

Wayne Larmon said:

tcg550 said:

It may eventually take off but I suspect when it does, in order to convince people to use it, it will have to be safe, secure and some sort of customer service making the whole thing no better then credit cards.

Click to expand...

Not disagreeing with this--this is mostly what I said. But the OP also said that blockchain can be used as an anti-theft device for the images you sell. Credit cards don't do this.

Wayne

Click to expand...

I'll admit I don't understand how blockchain could do that different but If I post a watermarked image on the internet and you give a credit card payment I'll give you the image without the watermark. If you want to steal and use the image with a watermark not sure how to stop that without just having physical prints available for purchase in a store with no internet sales.

Is the technology there to prevent someone from stealing an image using blockchain? Are we talking about a digital watermark of some sort?

I love new technology but this blockchain is confusing as all get out.

Click to expand...

Blockchain is not the same as Bitcoin. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology - but you can do much more with it. I am not an expert - but the main idea of blockchain is, giving things (contracts, bitcoins, graphical content) an individual code that is unique. You can use this technology for money transfer - but you can also mark products with it to document its origin. And why not giving your artistic graphics or photos this label and make them unique and for this reason much more valueable this way?

Click to expand...

Way over my head which is why, in my opinion, that it's going to be hard to convince the general public how it will benefit them. Might be easier to convince photographers or people selling digital content but it's the customers that have to be convinced.

I believe without some sort of governing agency it's too wild west for it to ever go mainstream but I've been wrong before.

As long as you're not shadow banded you should be seen.

Badwater said:

As long as you're not shadow banded you should be seen.

Click to expand...

You are talking about this phenomenon?


Well, it shows me that the internet is an important advertising platform also for photographers. The photographers being a vicitim of "shaddow banning" noticed their problem from shrinking public (likes) and engagements.

But I was thinking of the internet as a place to sell photos directly without a special service in the middle.

dmartin92 said:

The great change for the photography business was digital cameras. And computers.

In the days of film and darkrooms there were more barriers to entry.

Not just the money to buy all the equipment, but the knowledge of how to create images. And the desire to work with paper and chemicals.

Images are far, far easier to create these days.

Click to expand...

That is both a plus and a minus for the professional photography business. Almost everybody has a camera that produces pictures adequate and satisfactory for their use and there is no need to hire a professional except for very special events like a wedding.

VadymA said:

I’ve done my own research of blockchain technology and in my educated opinion, it still has a long way to go to prove its usefulness. There are a lot of claims about this technology which I believe are false. Here is just a few to keep it short because I can write a book on this subject.

Claim #1: blockchain is extremely secure. Well, just look this snap from last week news, read the title at the top right. Does it sound very secure?



Claim #2: blockchain cannot be manipulated, replicated, etc. The truth is, over two thousand new blockchain platforms were created between February and May of this year alone !!! (The time when I was conducting my research). It is easily relacable.

Claim #3: blockchain is not controlled by any individual organization. It is already recognized that using personal computers to maintain blockchain ledger is not efficient, so in most cases it is done by a handful of professional “miners” who accumulate tremendous leverage to be able to dictate the rules, or the idea of miners is being abandoned completely - the majority of new versions of blockchain are controlled by individual companies.

Sorry, I have to run, otherwise I could continue on and on. To repeat, I am not dismissing blockchain entirely, it is just we are not there yet to figure out the best way of using it.

Click to expand...

Well some part of your info is wrong!

The blockchain is like Unix, every one can use it to make her/his own platform and this is way different than ability to manipulation the current platform.

So number 2 is sort of misleading.

--
I FIGHT FOR USERS