Top-subscribed YouTuber PewDiePie, otherwise known as Felix Arvid Ulf Kjelberg, has recently announced that he has partnered with blockchain-based content platform DLive.

This comes after a protracted series of disagreements between YouTube and Kjelberg, and represents the situation of content creators on YouTube.

Kjelberg is currently the most subscribed YouTuber on the platform, garnering over 93 million subscribers after a sub-count war with Indian music platform T-Series. However, he is far from YouTube’s poster boy, due to his various run-ins with the platform.

PewDiePie’s Tumultuous Past With YouTube

Far before the battle with T-Series, PewDiePie was already in hot water withYouTube due to various controversies surrounding his content. In a video in 2017, Kjelberg was shown dressing up as a Nazi and making various controversial remarks.

His subscriber count also seemed to have backfired as well, with the accused in the Christchurch shooting saying ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ before killing numerous individuals. While this has put a lot of heat on Kjellberg, it only exacerbates his situation.

His videos have long been demonetized by YouTube, forcing him to look at other sources of income. These include individual sponsors and selling merchandise. However, DLive seems to have another method of supporting creators, which is why Kjelberg claims to have moved there.

DLive: A Breath Of Fresh Air?

YouTube has slowly been moving towards supporting corporations over individual creators. While this is also in the pursuit of more profits, it shuts out creators who have been contributing for a long time.

For example, in order to make YouTube an “advertiser-friendly platform”, the company began the policy of demonetizing videos that had inappropriate content in them.

Channels focused on content such as guns, illicit substances or swear words slowly began to die out due to a lack of monetization opportunities. This cut off a large number of content creators from the platform and restricted freedom of speech.

At the same time, YouTube began to heavily promote clips from prominent late night shows and television networks, which raked in a large amount of views and advertising money for the platform. This was also seen with the rise of T-Series, who’s videos are also heavily promoted on the site.

DLive is a content creation and broadcasting platform based on a blockchain known as the Livo blockchain. What sets DLive apart is that it does not charge any platform fees, and instead rewards participants in the ecosystem.

Viewers can also receive LINO points, which is the currency of the platform, if they interact with the streamers.

“Personally, I think it’s really cool to have a creator-based website actually putting creators first”, said Kjelberg in a video announcing his move to the platform.

The platform has over 3 million monthly active users and 35,000 active streamers, showing that it is not just another passing fad. The reward system also shows that it is possible to support creators without actually spending any money.

How The Livo Blockchain Works

For every donation made to the creators on the platform by users, 90.1% goes to the creator, while 9.9% goes to a pool of LINO points that rewards individuals that contribute to the network regularly.

Apart from this, the platform also has a concept known as the Content Bonus, which rewards creators with a bonus 7 days after the stream is completed. Added to all of this, it is possible for users and creators to receive more points by locking down a certain amount of the currency in the network.

If these tokens are indeed locked,the users are allowed to participate in questionnaires and will be able to guide the direction of the platform. All of this is possible due to the LINO blockchain which creates new LINO points every day. The amount of tokens created every day is dependent on how much the network is used.

This is a novel way of giving back to the community and sustaining creators at the same time through a model that can be used for a long time. Moreover, the presence of the DLive content network on the blockchain will allow for decentralization of power. Users and content creators will be in charge of the content they upload to the site, and will completely own it.

This also represents a shift towards a newer style of supporting content creators, as opposed to advertising models that invade user’s privacy. It is also important for creators to have a more sustainable source of income as well.