Hi! I’m Diego, as you might know, a lightship leader, a developer and a human.
When I started this journey in augmented reality development in 2016. One of the things that fascinated me the most were how open was everyone to help in the It communities.
Time passed by, all the struggles made me stronger and more resilient and today. Looking back, I can appreciate the future I’ve built for myself. But I would never tough how magic my life would become once I jumped into learning about Lightship AR and 8thwall.
Long story short story. World is changing. Instagram and Facebook users are now migrating towards TikTok and TikTok is offering all the things the community asked in SparkAR.
The spark AR community is I think dissolved and is currently lead by an algorithm that ranks the post you post on spark ar. So the majority of devs and creators are now jumping into TikTok.
Long story short story, I’m kind of tired of challenges, even do they represent a major leap forward my self tough AR development process.
I enjoy a lot the challenges but I’m honestly tired competing against each other to see who can create the most innovative and ground breaking technology.
Today in here asking, to change the equation. I wish the tomorrow the webXR opportunities are not just for some countries but for every countries, this means Brazil being able to participate in challenges, the most talented developers and creators are from Brazil, it makes no sense not allowing them to participate tin the future of AR.
So this being said, please please please, find a way for developers to monetize their work.
Currently the only way I have is by participating in the challenges, cuz every time I try to close a deal, I get rejected. Is unbeatable Free vs 1 month license of 3000usd.
I wish this year and max the next one, I had another way to monetize rather than challenges. If not, I’m gonna switch back to LightshipAR tech and going all in with aframe and threejs outside the 8thwall ecosystem.
Once you reach certain level with development, as I did. You start to realize you don’t actually need 8thwall as a platform.
Al those plus value of cloud editor and fancy feature as VPS are worthless once you can’t monetize the knowledge.
I love the technology but sorry it makes no sense being charged monthly and the same price of licens if you do a simple image tracking or a complex XR experiences, they included multiple features.
It would make more sense to me charge the client per feature and the license to be per life.
Licenses make sense under the context of marketing campaign and charging per platform.
But why I do need 8thwall once I learned to code with aframe and three.js when I can have the same code, almost the same, hosted myself for free in firebase or in my own website with my own custom url for less than 20usd a year.
I feel that I love the initiatives of challenges but everyday I get stronger, smarted and more ready for tomorrow opportunities, I feel. They it makes no sense competing against each other, in challenges and make more sense work together world wide. To gain clients, make awesome projects and innovate the world one Experience at the time.
But the funnel part, is the monetization always.
We have a really tough time pitching XR that cost 3000 usd to maintain monthly , and I’m not in the position of a marketing agency wich will be most likely to be one who can close those deals.
But guess what? Do you think Instagram filters and Snapchat filters, would had the same reach if developers were charging brands to jump in the technology a monthly fee?
No, brand jumped in because it was free to host, they had the platform and the people, so clients just need to pay for development.
As the way it is now, I makes no sense to keep investing time in learning 8thwall technologies if I can not sell them.
I won’t be participating forever on the challenges bc once you learn the tech you want to create miningfulm project that are a milestone in your career.
In my case I want to be able to bring more AR to Latam, and with the current license and way to monetize is just impossible and this makes me so sad, cuz all the hard work at the end gets cut when I try to close a deal.
What I want?
A price calcular of features as this Firebase Pricing
Crystal clear pricing, that means client and programmer can check. To see exactly how much they will get charge.
I would love to see another monetization model from 8thwall because honestly simulator, VPs and Wayspot all are fun until you realize there is no way you can close a deal.
So my stake on this is the hat 8thwall is a developer product. Where devs are the target audience.
But guess what? As a developer after almost 1 year of developing with 8, I realize, firebase give you hosting free, you can buy a domain really cheap, and at the end I always come to the same point.
Why I need a 3k license if I want to just show a simple web AR?
Now, I can just feel frustration of occupy my time competing against other devs in challenges instead of forming a strong net of developers who can together bring more AR, everywhere all at once.
Kind regards,
Diego