One of the earliest ideas people pitched as a potential application for Bitcoin was independent payment structures within mobile apps that were designed to do things other than be a Bitcoin centered app. Unfortunately at present time, the idea remains just that, an idea. Despite Coinbase making it a fairly simple process, few mainstream apps have taken advantage of it.
Nebel.tv is funding on IndieGoGo and it hopes to not only fulfill that promise, but bring the same decentralization and freedom to the entertainment industry and Bitcoin plays a major part in its plans on how.
In many ways, the internet itself was supposed to democratize the entertainment industry and in many ways, it has. It is easier than ever to create content and put it out on YouTube or a dozen other sites where it can reach a large audience.
What has remained sadly centralized are the avenues of monetization. When iTunes burst onto the scene, people were excited about artists getting better deals, until it became obvious that Apple's deal with artists wasn't much better than the record companies'. The issue isn't restricted to Apple, content creators have complained about YouTube's profit sharing. The internet made it easy and nearly free to reach an audience, but money generated off of that audience still goes through channels that, while not the same channels that existed before, look pretty familiar.
Bittorrent has been a great tool for independent minded artists. While the software is mostly known for its piracy (in much the same way the Silkroad defines Bitcoin in many uneducated minds) the success of the legal and artist focused Bittorrent Bundles should not be discounted.
Nebel.tv takes the same artist focused approach of the Bittorrent Inc. Bundles, adds the open sourced nature, resistance to censorship, and simple UI of Popcorn Time and combines it with an integrated Bitcoin payment system.
Nebel.tv is nothing if not ambitious. Using a similar decentralized p2p system as Bittorrent, users will be able to share any kind of content (from a movie to an album to a program). Unlike most piracy minded torrents, the entire system is built with privacy and security in mind. The uploader will have the power to restrict who can see their content, and using the app's built in bitcoin wallet, can accept payments to release his or her content to a customer.
Best of all, unlike iTunes or streaming apps, almost all of the money goes directly to the uploader.
Of course, fees aren't necessary. Users can simply share your video collection with a group of friends, or the entire internet. That said, the wallet's usefulness extends beyond paying for content as well. Users can elect to turn ads on or off. If a user leaves the ads on, he or she will be rewarded with a small amount of bitcoin for each commercial watched. People have been promising micro-payments for watching ads for years, but because of Bitcoin's infinite divisibility and low cost transactions it might actually make sense this time.
The bitcoins earned from watching ads will can then be withdrawn or used to buy more content through the app.
This is an example why Bitcoin's potential goes way beyond just money. Bitcoin democratizes financial systems, but the implications of that are far deeper than simply making a better MasterCard than MasterCard. It also has the possibility to change who makes content, how they sell it and why they make it.
Nebel.tv is hoping to raise $440,000 before July 10th and is using fixed funding, meaning it has to hit its goal to get any money. In addition to an Android app, the company also hopes to make an HDMI dongle and set-top-box.