Li Jin's article the New Creator Playbook lays out how the web2 creator playbook (create free content ➡️ build an audience ➡️ monetize) fails:

• creators are unsure if they'll see returns on free content

• less well-off creators can't afford to participate

Nounish Media DAOs are a uniquely cryptonative solution to both these problems.

How it works:

People with a common interest pool ETH into a Nounish DAO. For example: people who love cat videos

In exchange for ETH, DAO members get voting rights on the DAO's treasury which by social convention is earmarked for the funding of cat videos

As we've seen with OG Nouns DAO this pool of mandated ETH magnetically attracts creators (people who are passionate about creating cat videos can now see on-chain a huge pile of ETH dedicated to cat video funding).

Cat video creators then pitch the DAO for funding. The only string attached to this funding is videos must feature the DAO's branding prominently + be CC0.

If the cat videos are awesome, other cat video lovers will see them and be made aware of the DAO. Current and new DAO members will wish to continue buying daily NFTs to keep funding the content.

If the content is low quality or doesn't garner sufficient attention, the creators still get paid but the DAO runs out of ETH and ceases to exist (a market based curation mechanism).

This setup addresses both pitfalls from the web2 world:

creators are paid for their work up front so no need to guess ROI, you can see the ETH value of interest in this niche on-chain

creators get paid up front which means people from all economic backgrounds can create

The key to all of this is something fundamentally cryptonative: the trustless on-chain treasury.

In the web2 world of Patreon and Substack you build the audience yourself with no upfront capital. In the web3 world we pre-aggregate capital AND attention for creators on day one.

If you know me, you know I'm not a tech twitter think boi. I'm putting my ETH where my mouth is on this one I'm running an experiment to create the first Nounish Media DAO to fund crypto journalism. After the recent revelations about the Block plus the eyebrow raising coverage of the SBF / FTX debacle by most of the main stream media it feels like now is the time to experiment with a different model.

If you want to help me disrupt journalism and in the process experiment with the Nounish Media DAO concept DM me on twitter.

We’re launching in the next few weeks.