Gumroad Online Marketplace "Another Peg in Place for the Metaverse"

I mentioned how there's a growing real cash economy for VRChat-based content on Gumroad, an online marketplace for digital content, and reader Joey1058 explored the site deeper, then came back with this brief report:

I took a look at Gumroad. This site is awesome. It's not tied specifically to a particular VR world. This means that somewhere up the road, creators can expand their line for any world they see fit to sell to. One more peg in place for the metaverse!

Quite possibly! In all honesty I didn't know much about the site before this, but it claims that nearly 72,000 creators are selling content on the platform; according to SimilarWeb, Gumroad gets over 12 million monthly visits in recent months, which is quite decent. My pal Leigh Alexander sells her fiction on Gumroad and has this endorsement on the homepage, which is good enough for me.

Also to Joey's point, the content for sale on Gumroad isn't locked to any specific virtual world. (It even has some Second Life-related items for sale.) I don't know if Gumroad will ultimately become the main commerce site for the Metaverse (single or plural), but I think he's right that some kind of independent marketplace like this will be key to making it viable.

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

I have spent a stupid about of money on Gumroad for VRChat avatars.

Any Second Life creator who isn't porting their stuff to VRChat - you're missing out. The markup for VRChat is insane - Second Life avatars tend to go for 900L ($3.75 USD) but on VRChat the minimum avatar price tends to be around $30.00 USD. And people pay it willingly. And there's no cash-out wait period.

[Joey1058]

@Adeon Writer: Not just SL creators. I can see IMVU creators going here as well. Especially if any of them is using Blender as a creation tool. I did a search for X3D, and WRL, and was actually surprised that a couple of products exist there as well.