Atemosta: Almost Open For Business

18. In search of a middleman

Getting more specific about who the work is for…

Prompt: Who is it for? The work you’re doing who does it need to please? The gallery owner, the programming director, the head of A&R? Are you trying to be heard and paid by a middleperson? Or are you trying to set yourself up to be heard by the person who is then going to talk about the work you do?

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A Tempest of Stars

This year, I finally did it. After talking up my small business idea for what seemed like years, I finally sat down, bought the URL name, and spent four weekends cranking out my site! (Thanks global pandemic, couldn’t have done it without ya bud).

-> https://atemosta.com/ <-

On the surface, there is nothing inherently special about this website. But this is truly my website, styled in a way that makes me smile from ear to ear whenever I open it up. Why do I love it so much?

• it’s built on Jekyll, an open-source software which makes hosting this website FREE as long as you have the technical know-how

But now you may be asking, what is Atemosta?

Downsizing

It takes money to make money.

Bleh. What a gross and predatory phrase. So many business start and fail with the middleman, a loan approved by a bank that can never be paid back. Very few succeed, and those are the only stories we hear. We never get to know about the 99% that crumple into nothingness.

I want NO part in this game.

@pravinshekar: Learn the rules, Play the rules, Master the rules, Break all the rules and make your own ones! Go, outlier, go!

Instead, I want to play a new game. Start with nothing, and build onwards from there. Investors are owners, and will never understand your vision. Let yourself be the muse, and soon your soul will be set free!

Open Source, Open Heart, Open Seas

Open Source is a term describing software created by volunteers and distributing it completely for free.

FREE? That’s insane! We all know you have to pay for stuff you want, right?

Not necessarily, as the open source community has proven.

• They code for good as they are not paid, accepting donations, but not demanding them
• They code for truth as all their work can be examined online for malicious intent
• They code for equality and diversity, as anyone can use their work, and are always looking for new contributions

Imagine if other facets of our life used the Open Source philosophies. How about music? Lady Gaga is a world-renown artist (so my roommate tells me daily), and her policy on piracy is staggering. Go ahead and illegally download, the profit matters not to me. So long as you enjoy my work and share it with those you care about, that is payment enough for me.

And so Atemosta at its birth with pull from open source philosophies. We will do our upmost to make our works free and accessible for all, but incentivize those to want to go the extra mile and donate.

Ko-fi (for one-time donations): https://ko-fi.com/atemosta

Patreon (for recurring donations): [Coming Soon]

Bitcoin Address: [Coming Soon]

Ethereum Address: [Coming Soon]

Tezos Address: [Coming Soon]

Crypto?

You may not be familiar with the last three donation addresses, and that is perfectely normal. They are all a type of cryptocurrency, which is the love child of open source philosophies and personal finance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENhIceyydSM

I remember watching this video hesitantly, and being blown away by how much cryptocurrency runs in parallel with what I believe in. I crushed this video series in one night, and felt empowered at the financial decisions of tomorrow. Some key takeaways from Part 1 alone:

• Cryptocurrency is a decentralized currency for the 99%. There is no middleman, because we the users run the network collectively.
• Cryptocurrency does not require you to be a certain race, a certain age, a certain income level, or any nonsensical requirement for eligibility of use. All you need is access to the Internet, the great equalizer.
• Cryptocurrency is structured in a way that incentivizes participation instead of sabotage. Insane, I can think of very few other examples achieving this strata.

I lamented at the idea of using Ko-fi and Patreon because those are both middleman, and can revoke my account for any reason at any time as it is in their right to do so. With cryptocurrency, we are all beholden to each other, and that is an immensely humbling prospect.

Reaching Out

I’m preparing for WHEN we succeed, but hilariously enough I’ve put very little work into our products or advertising :sweat_smile: This is an area I’m still exploring through various other prompt responses, but right now my biggest goal is to have a social media presence that lets Atemosta and the community have an ongoing conversation. We will be the intersection between anime, virtual reality, and role-playing games, which are all looking for a hero to emerge.

Website: posted above ^ Discord Server: [Coming Soon] Twitter: https://twitter.com/atemosta Facebook: [Coming Soon] Instagram: [Coming Soon] AltspaceVR World: [Coming Soon]

A Deal With the Devil

Oculus was originally a Kickstarter project to create Virtual Reality headsets which was eventually bought up by Facebook. Palmer Lucky, the founder of Oculus, states that no matter the flak he gets for accepting this deal given Facebook’s increasingly malicious renown, it was a necessary step for Virtual Reality to be accessible to all.

To his point, he is correct.

The average price for a virtual reality headset is around $800-$1000, and you also requires a computer that can run virtual reality graphics, so that’s another $600-$2000. The Oculus Quest, a standalone headset with a built-in processor, is sold at only $400, and now $300 with last’s week announcement of the Quest 2.

Despite what seems like good news, the Quest 2 is now requiring a mandatory connection to an authenticated Facebook account, but for what reason? Virtual Reality is still a growing field without a lot of regulations, and it seems Facebook wants to take advantage of the non-existing privacy rights of its users. They make all their money from selling user data,

but

they made VR headsets cheaper and accessible to a wider variety of early adopters.

:thinking:

Coupled with their ultra-exclusive Oculus store, which comes off like Facebook has an over-invested hand in each of its titles, the future is… uncertain for Atemosta.

There are also other realms to explore, such as other VR stores and possibly just releasing our applications for free and being exclusively funded by donations and micro-transactions, but it’s a question we will have to answer once the time finally arrives.