Even at a somewhat objective measure, there are a shit load of different messaging and video calling apps that you can use to communicate with your friends, enemies or virtual strangers, if that’s your thing.
Today, a new one has landed on Product Hunt that claims to be filling a gap left by platforms like Patreon and Twitch, by allowing its users to offer one-on-one paid-for video chats.
While its intended use case is to help “content creators make more money”, the Copper team says, it also doesn’t take a massive leap to imagine it being used by adult performers in an even more direct-to-fan model.
This might not be Copper’s intended aim, but with simple integrated payments – a stumbling block for many adult performers who might otherwise offer a more direct fan model – it’s a future waiting to happen. Unless Copper puts blocks in place to stop certain types of content being transmitted on its platform. It’d be a little bit of a strange move against entirely legal content and services when you’re offering one-on-one video chats though.
Beyond the adult niche, the company sees Copper as providing a potential way of people or small businesses (and even smaller budgets) to get access to key advice or instructional information at a low cost.
And if the ‘seller’ is feeling particularly charitable, any money raised can be donated to charity within the app. That doesn’t mean it has to be though, of course.
For now, the app is iOS-only but there’s an Android version in the works. It’s also not possible to record or playback the video calls afterwards, but this is also being added, according to the company.
For adult performers always looking for another revenue stream to potentially monetize or grow an audience, Copper is probably going to be worth checking out.
We contacted the company to see if it would be putting any sort of content restrictions in place but hadn’t heard back at the time of publishing.
- Copper [iOS]
