I have probably been your biggest supporter since day 1. It was not anyone from your company, but me, who stayed up for 24 hours in your first clubhouse room & raised $ so others could mint their first NFTS during the event.
I onboarded thousands of people to your platform via clubhouse, spending over 2E of my personal earnings to do so. We choose Opensea because it was the most accessible, the most truly open, and seemed to care about artists. You gave us a foot in the door, but at the same time when i entered, the rhetoric was largly, Anti-Opensea.
It was artists who choose Opensea, because of the tools your provided.
When a lot of this space has been quick to judge, I understand the nuances of being the largest marketplace, as an American company, in a new industry. The truth is, we are in Web2.5. I read your TOS early on. I don't love it, but i understand why you need to block countries sanctioned by the US. I knew what I was getting into with minting on Opensea.
(which is why I deployed my own ERC-20 as soon as I new how for people who collected on my shared storefront - as well as taught myself how to create my own smart contracts). BUT - I came into this space for different reasons that many.
While I am personally a decentralization maxi, and came to this space for censorship resistance, I understood your place as well.
For mass adoption, onboarding, large companies to feel safe etc, Opensea makes sense. For creators, Opensea COULD STILL make sense. IF YOU HANDLE THIS PROPERLY.
I would not be here without opensea, and your tools. I give credit where credit is due, and I remember who helped me get to where I am. For you guys, I am not so sure....I have been grateful for the tools you provided us. Myself and so many others were only able to participate in this ecosystem because of Opensea Shared Storefronts. Your dev docs, API’s and testnet marketplace were hugely helpful when there were no other resources.
This is the first time I have been openly critical and upset by your actions. They misalignment of your words and your policies feel like a slap in the face to all of us who have given you countless ETH over the past 2.5 years (which you deserved, because you provided a service that no one else did).
Maybe you can clarify some things, and while I am aware that I am giving you way more advice than you deserve in this I feel like there are so many things not being taken into consideration:
MARKETPLACE POSITIONING/ INCONSISTENT MESSAGING
First - 0% Royalties Caters to flippers. You take a 2.5% marketplace fee which is WELL above every other marketplace, and have no tokens or airdrops. For people only thinking about the bottom line you will never make sense.
In your blog talking about your decision, you state:
Opensea HAS NEVER been fully decentralized or permissionless.
So why are you now taking that stance?
This honestly feels like an attempt to gaslight creators into true blockchain values. BUT those will never be fully possible on your platform.
Why try and play both sides?
Until yesterday, creator fees were positioned as so:
(which was also misleading & please read more on secondary sales royalties ).
Most of us were brought into the space believing some iteration of this, and while its not true...
What happened to creating a new culture, respecting creators, and building a better world for artists?
YOU ARE THE ONE MARKETPLACE THAT ENFORCES THINGS ACCORDING TO REGULATION... for better or for worse... SO WHY NOT ENFORCE THE IDEALS IN WHICH WE ALL ENTERED THIS SPACE?
In your announcement blog post you state:
WHY GO BACKWARDS?
You are the platform that follows the rules. IF you can block stolen assets from being traded, then why can you not honor royalties for all collections made on the platform?
ON CHAIN ROYALTIES & HYPOCRISY IN LABELING THIS AS SUCH
Your new policy will go into effect for new collections, without any clarity on old collections. The way you phrase this it makes it seem you are providing tools to implement & adhere to on chain royalties. On the surface, this sounds great.
But - you already have the tools to do this.
Manifold Built a Royalty Registry in collaboration with YOU. However, these are not honored by default by your platform. Creators still had to go set their royalties via collection on your marketplace.
Why not just honor all on-chain royalties using the registry? (You know, adhering to the information on the blockchain?)
Maybe this is a simple oversight, and an omission of the facts that you will be honoring all on chain royalties. In fact, the royalty registry even allows for people to build retroactively, which would be a pretty existing fix for all the collections
But, that is not how your solution truly reads. You may say that you feel it is not up to make decisions as a marketplace, but that is exactly what you are doing.
The solution that you are proposing all creators add into their smart contracts for royalties to be enforced, they must block your competition.
This is from the Opensea Github Repo released in their announcement on 11/5.
This is not pro-creator, this is not pro-creator choice, this is going against all of the ideals that you have said this protocol is to protect.
Once again, why gaslight us that on-chain royalties goes against the permisionless-ness nature of the blockchain?
Why say that marketplaces should not make decisions for creators?
Own your place in this space. Since you will never be fully decentralized and permission-less Be built for this new paradigm and the future of creators. (But i will stop giving you free branding advice now)
Now we get into the nuance of royalties and the bandaid solution. (and this is important for creators to read as well because many are still confused).
You ask artists to block other operators ....(and add their code into an immutable contract - yes you can make upgradable contracts but does that not also sacrifice the "permissionlessness and censorship resistant nature of the blockchain?")
In this method, you give creators the option to block 0% or optional royalty marketplaces via their operator address.
The marketplaces can change their operator address's, and while you can update these, for a smaller creator this is unsustainable, making it the most sense to subscribe to Opensea's list, thus, placing the fate of where their art is, in the hands of Opensea.
While this filter can be removed, I am wondering what will give creators confidence that Opensea has THEIR best interest at heart?
Prior to seaport, each user had their own unique operator address on Opensea. (remember the account initialization fees).
Going back to this model is a pretty easy change for marketplaces...
If all marketplaces go back to that model, this code you are asking everyone to add to their contracts becomes irrelevant. What will happen to those who followed your instructions? Will their Royalties still be honored?
this feels like a game of whack-a-mole that one can never win....
While I acknowledge that creators need to think about secondary sales as optional, in asking them to cut ties with all other marketplaces...
what else will you be providing? What are the gaurentees for those artists who prove their loyalty on chain to you?
Because right now it feels like you are putting the needs of those who have been loyal to you as the last priority.
Truth it, it has not made sense to trade on OS for a long time. Highest marketplace fees, no token, policies that oftentimes harm purchasers.
People still did though. You need to ask yourself WHY.
You did actually provide a tool for those with the teams of devs to do so, but you need to think of what you are asking people to do, your messaging, and its inconsistencies.
This is a huge red flag for not only myself, but so many creators who have been here for a minute.
Additionally if you do decide to honor all on-chain royalties and I am missing something:
Will we still have to set collection royalties for Opensea? If the same policy for anyone who adds your code into an upgradable smart contract.... that they need to contact your support team?
Will you have enough of a support team to make sure all collections are switched over by Dec 8th if so, even the creators who have not traded a ton of ETH? Will this be accessible to everyone by the deadline?
Since this ONLY applies to new listings, being timely and fair for all users is essential.
While I do not know your profit margins, I know you made BILLIONS of dollars off of the 2.5% you collected on all "historical collections." To not address those collections first, the artists and creators your platform is built off of is a huge miss. I personally have answered so many questions for people many thought I worked at Opensea. and I am not the only one. We were there for you. Why not discuss with us first.
The pro-creator angle is misleading if it is really anti-competition. There will always be new competition and to FORCE creators to choose one marketplace instead of let the market decide is quite frankly embarrassing and idk feels like a liability in an attempt to maintain a monopoly over this space.
We came here bc we were sick of record labels, big tech, big brands controlling us. YOU participated in so much of that narrative.
Where do you stand?
OPENSEA SHARED STOREFRONT
I will be the first to admit I am waiting for a wrapper or a solution for my OS shared storefront tokens. With the accessibility and much lower cost for artists to deploy their own smart contract, I always advocate, and even help artists switch to this model asap. (I run a space every Wednesday at 10:00 AM PT).
That said, the OS shared storefront was crucial for me and so many others in this space.
I was SO excited when you launched on Polygon, creating 0 barrier to entry for artists. You pitched this solution as being pro-creator, but your creator tools are not implementing the solution... do you see where this does not line up?
Why are you NOT expanding the on chain royalty fee to AT LEAST the polygon collections on your OS shared storefront (I understand why this may get to costly on ETH?)
WHY ARE YOU NOT CREATING TOOLS FOR INDEPENDENT CREATORS WITHOUT DEV TEAMS TO BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS NEW IMPLEMENTATION IF THEY CHOOSE?
The OS shared storefront is pretty centralized, lets be real.
WHY NOT GRANDFATHER IN ALL COLLECTIONS BUILT ON OS SHARED STOREFRONT TO KEEP ROYALTIES?
The fact that all of us who used this are not being grandfathered into royalties should make all of us skeptical that if we update our contracts or our projects to what you are saying today, that we will still be punished or forgotten in the future.
The fact that shared storefronts can no longer set royalties is Mindblowing to me. Who are shared storefronts for?
Mainly beginners without tools and resources.
Why give them less options? Unless you are phasing this out, why have total control over an artists contract, metadata, and give them NO OPTION FOR SECONDARY SALES?
DISCUSSION MODEL/ THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE:
If I have not already made my point clear, the fact that you present the "new solution" for "new collections" and are opening up discussion to make decisions for historical collections in the next 30 days, once again does not prioritize creators.
I also have alot of doubts that by Dec 8th you will actually vet solutions, build them, test them, audit them, and implement them. It feels like your mind has already been made up.
But if it has not, I really hope y'all address some of these points and concerns.
It is the middle of the bear market. You had it right when you acknowledged that you had to be thoughtful when rolling this out, but the only consideration you have announced is one for new collections.
New collections I may add, who have a dev team. "Just adding a line of code in" is not easy for most creators, who rely on no-code tools.
And I do not think that these truly neutral parties should have to cater to only your standard (which has already happened with metadata but thats another issue for another day...)
You say that there is not a one size fits all option. But I hope you hear ALL of us. I hope you think about the smaller creators and traders, whose need for a place to trade their art was the reason sentiment began to change around your platform.
In the future, talk to us first. Listen to your community. Playing the middle never helps anyone. TELL US WHO YOU ARE. WHO YOU ARE HERE FOR. IF U ARE HERE TO APPEAL TO REGULATORS, RULES, AND BE AN EXAMPLE OF POLICY, THAN ALSO HONOR CREATORS & EVERYTHING YOU PITCHED ABOUT ROYALTIES.
This announcement feels calculated, misleading & cruel.
I hope i am wrong about everything I am calling out here, and every assumption, and I hope that you do not choose to set the tone to choose profits > the people and missions that brought us together.
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