Reclaiming Creative Commons
We've built a cooperative ecosystem that allows artists and fans to support each other at half the price of existing tech companies. Each group supports the other. Artists bring their creative output, fans provide the distribution.
Unlike other media platforms that rely on serving ads and limiting payouts for artists, Retrovibed is designed to maximize revenue for artists. It does this via two mechanisms: per stream, and storage.
Per Stream Revenue
Instead of having a fixed amount per stream, artists are paid based on the amount of time fans spent with their content. If a fan spends 80% of their time enjoying a artists content then 80% of their subscriptions profits go to that artist.
This improves the amount of revenue generated per stream for artists relative to current industry practices. We can do this because fans are supplying distribution infrastructure by using Retrovibed.
Shared Storage Revenue
Unlike other cloud storage providers Retrovibed distributes the cost of storing a particular piece of content across all the users who add that content to their library. Since its not a completely even split this simultaneously reduces the cost for each user while generating stable monthly profits for the artist.
And since the storage is essentially at cost and there are no restrictions for the type of media stored users are able to store more content for less than services like apple cloud, dropbox, google cloud.
Why Retrovibed?
| Feature | Big Tech (Google/Apple/Spotify) | Retrovibed |
|---|
| Storage Cost | $10/mo for 2TB (Standard) | $6/mo for 2TB (40% cheaper) |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | subscription based limits, we'll remove these once userbase scales up. |
| Ownership | Revocable license (they can delete it) | Permanent Archive (you own the bits) |
| Creator Pay | Fractions of a penny per stream | Up to 95% of profit sharing on storage, and stream based payouts on user's content consumption + subscription tier. |
| Privacy | Ad-tracking & Data mining | Zero-knowledge & E2E Encrypted |
| Censorship | Algorithmic, shadowbanning | None. Anonymous, P2P Distribution |
The Tech Behind the Movement
Community-Powered Economics
Traditional clouds charge you for every gigabyte, even if a million people are storing the same file.
When multiple users archive the same media (upload your music albums!), our backend deduplicates the data. We pass those savings to you (lower costs) and the creator (direct profit sharing). The more popular the content, the more efficient the system becomes.
Privacy by Default, Not an afterthought
We don't want to read your data. All content is encrypted with keys managed by you.
For those in restricted regions, we've baked in WireGuard VPN, and a SOCKS5 proxy. We focus on user friendly privacy — securing your traffic without impacting your entire system or requiring complicated setup.
Directly supporting Artists
Streaming giants take massive cuts to feed their bottom line. We share the bulk of the profits between the users and artists.
By turning storage and subscription fees into creator revenue, your monthly bill becomes a direct investment in the people who make the content you love.
Universal Player
From 4K video to high-fidelity lossless audio, your archive is accessible everywhere — Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS. No platform lock-in.