This is a proposal, not a finished plan. You asked us to bring big ideas to you before we decide them, so that's what this is. We're sharing a problem and some early ideas, and we want yours. Nothing here is locked - we'll read every comment and come back next week with what we're actually going to build.
The short version: The people who generate images are a huge part of what makes Civitai work, and right now they don't have great ways to earn. We want to fix that, and we want your help figuring out how.
The problem
When you generate and post great images, you're doing real work for the whole platform. Your images fill the feeds, they show off what a model can do, and they're often the reason someone else discovers a LoRA or checkpoint and starts using it. A lot of the value a model creates comes from the people generating with it.
But if you're primarily an image creator rather than a model creator, your ways to earn are thin - mostly rewards and the occasional tip. And as model creators gain the ability to set licensing fees, the gap gets more noticeable: you might spend buzz generating with someone's model, help promote it, and not have a clear way to earn from that yourself.
We think that's a real gap, and we'd rather solve it with you than guess at it.
Some ideas we're kicking around
None of these are decided. They're a starting point:
Make Blue Buzz actually useful. A lot of image creators earn mostly Blue Buzz, which today is limited (you can't spend it on cosmetics, pay for model access, and so on). Opening up what Blue Buzz can do would put real value in the hands of the people earning it. One design constraint: we have intentionally avoided activities that work as a mechanism to aggregate Blue Buzz into a single account, as a way to discourage bots from abusing the rewards system and then pooling to a single account.
Reward great images based on how they do. Scale image rewards with reactions and saves, so posting a genuinely good image that people love actually pays extra.
Let model creators share their fee with the images that sell their model. An opt-in where a model creator can pass a slice of their licensing fee to the creators whose posted images drive people to that model. If your generations are what made a model popular, you'd share in what it earns.
What we want from you
You're the ones who know what would actually make this worth it. Tell us in the comments:
Which of these would matter most to you, and which wouldn't move the needle?
What are we missing? If there's a better model for rewarding image creators, we want to hear it.
What have you seen work well elsewhere?
We'll read all of it, and we'll post again next week with what we're moving forward on. Thanks for helping us build this the right way this time.