This is about this creator economy update, short answer, its bad for us freemiums, and not great in my opinion in other ways for the rest, and if you were planning on genning with your own stuff, I'd go all out here before end of August. Thanks for stopping by. Oh, you're still here? Well we do have 87 more minutes to pad out.
So this'll be a quarter informational, three quarters rant, but I gotta balance myself. Society as a whole benefits when I balance myself. I told my wife, its part of the process, like when you swear when you're putting together IKEA furniture. And clothes on the floor means they're good for one more wear, there's a whole system, just because you don't like the system doesn't mean there isn't one!
Well, there's this creator update, I suppose you could read it on the .com site too but odds are if you're reading me in the first place you didn't find me for my PG stuff:
https://civitai.red/articles/32087/creator-economy-update-2026-you-set-the-price-now
Essentially this means I'm not going to get any buzz back on any of my loras anymore unless I get a membership. And further, if you were to start as a new user today, and get a paid membership, today, I'm doubtful you could get around that, but I'll get to that more in a second.
There's other people who understand all this better, I'm sure, and you can read people you trust if you want an opinion. I like to listen to people's opinions, but prefer to form my own unless I just have so little interest in the subject or its so eye-glazingly complex (boring) I just can't be bothered. Most things I don't need to understand everything about, you might think this is an odd view to take for a pondering sort like me, but I prefer to think of it as saving hard drive space. Let me put it this way. When's the last time YOU needed quadratic equations? Do nothing of which is no use. Musashi Miyamoto said that, right before he made munchy meats most Mondays.
So this is for the people who have even less patience for parsing all this than me, believe it or not there's a few, and lets face it, I've got way more rhythm than a site announcement. And I like to think I'm not bad at bumper-stickering things, I just got a compulsion to bloviate at odds with that. These all sort of build themselves in reverse:
-They're changing the creator compensation end of August.
-It WAS 25% buzz on images genned, now you have to set the percentage/buzz amount on your models/loras manually.
-If you DON'T do so, it reverts to 0% buzz on images genned.
-To set your percentage, you have to be in the creator program.
-To be in the creator program, you need BOTH a creator score above 40K AND an active paid civitai membership. Both.
My score is 238.8K, to give you context, that's after 39 loras, and trying to be a good citizen. I still wonder at what anyone could have possibly reported me on and how anyone could ok it, but I've said since the beginning, you have to be really persistent and sort of mean Don Rickles to dispute these airhead things and if I can't see it, it doesn't get disputed.
-If you're not in the creator program, the option to set buzz percent, etc, simply isn't there, and you get 0.
I noticed this morning some gens are already more expensive, I'm not going to name names, but certain loras of certain big name characters, like a 2 or 3 buzz jump per image on a 10 step. Some people already read the announcement and made their changes. Now, I don't know if they're just changing the cost to the minimum (and if so, oh man, am I going to stick to my own stuff), or if they're trying to get some extra. I can't see the options because I'm not in the creator program.
But if this is how its going to go, I VERY strongly believe you're going to see less people using those loras, or experimenting in general. People are going to stick to whats afforadable and safe, unless they're swimming in buzz anyway. I'm not telling you how to run your business, I am not the norm in any universe, but you should be kind of honest with yourself if you're going to price yourself out of the market the way Pepsi nearly did. Some people are Pepsi and some people are RC, and you should know your market and their budget. I'm already really thinking thrice about a few, and when they come up in my queue again, I'll just stop using them at those prices. I've got some buzz because I'm really disciplined with it, and if I'm gonna blow an extra 4 an image gen, and if you've been on here any length of time, you know every gen is a gamble, it better be something I really, really want. At that cost, it might even make more sense to make my own.
Especially you did the work and paid to be in this creator program (you'd HAVE to), you oughta get paid something, yes, I agree, but I can't help but think some people are going to fall into this whole trap I've seen out of so many sellers and corporations where I gotta ponder just who it is still gives them business, cuz its not somebody on a budget who's gotta justify these nice to haves but don't needs. There's always that price point where people say enough, and you'd be amazed, but I can name you alot of companies been around for decades don't seem to get this. Give those gas companies credit, they know the second you charge $4 instead of $3.99 a gallon, it'll be cats marrying dogs.
Since I've been online, there's always that guy on ebay or Amazon who thinks they should be getting $30 + shipping for a $2.50 bag of FiFA limited edition Argentian style steak flavored chips. You don't sell to 100,000 people, never that, but you get that one theoretical guy who doesn't know what things cost, I guess you stay in the black, and if you gotta hold onto your bag of chips until they're vintage and not good for anything but display purposes anyway, hey, that's a 1100% markup!
I don't believe in that. How many of those guys can there really be, and what are the odds he wants those chips in the first place? Meanwhile its taking up pantry space!
Now let me switch gears here, to this article title. I never got into this to get paid, I've always accepted that this is a pay site. I know they need to get paid because running a site costs money and hosting my screed here costs money, and whatever money I make them is negligible. If I had it in me to do some mainstream lora everybody used, I'm sure I could stumble into one after a few tries. I could probably do it today.
But I don't see the point in doing things everyone else has already done, and probably better, even for personal profit, or if not that, not having to pay money. Its against my whole creative instinct. I don't kid myself that semi-obscure 90's character (semi-obscure at best) or an OC from a fic I probably haven't even finished are going to make me back my 500 buzz unless I'm the one playing with it.
On the other hand, getting a little buzz back when I genned my own stuff was very helpful. Someone taking a run with my loras and, eh, 100 yellow buzz was helpful, for sure. Not even going to get that back now.
And again, its a pay site. They operate it at a loss and I'm freebo now. I was paid, when you could use a credit card, but I don't want to deal with crypto. Could I puzzle it out? Probably even at this late stage. But then I can't justify hoops like that for a hobby, specially when I don't have a job.
Somewhat similar thing with the green membership via credit card. Maybe I could find a use for it, but I'd be limited to using 75% of my loras, to say nothing of other people's. I won't tell you I never gen SFW stuff, cuz I do, but I can't tell you how tired I used to get getting squawked at (and I still sometimes do) for anything that could possibly be misinterpreted.
But, supposing I did get the membership, $10 a month. If the option were there for me to get paid something, sure, I'd set it, but not if you all were paying an extra buzz per gen. Not to Imposter Syndrome here, but I'm not worth that (let alone 3 buzz a gen, but thats their rodeo). Like some percentage of a 1 buzz, yeah I could live with that. You should hear me discussing pay rates on these job calls, I'm so easy.
Ok, well I guess I've got nothing more to say and I ranted enough about how Fritos specifically cost $5.50 for some reason (being addicted to that chili cheese dust, but I want to hear an OFFICIAL reason).
I understand all this, and I don't pretend to know how the sites doings beyond I know its probably treading water and cutting the buzz payouts and facilitating new memberships helps them. I want this site to continue, but especially the .red side, not just for adult stuff but for the fact that other corporate sites like chatgpt will still squawk at you for the mildest of PG-13 suggestions depending on the day of the week.
As I like to tell other people who aren't as into my complaining (making accurate and humorous slice of life observations!), understanding it doesn't mean I have to pretend to like it, and if it does, where's my check?