Direct, not pooled
On most streaming and platform models, what a fan pays doesn't map cleanly to what a specific creator earns — it goes into a shared pool, divided up by formulas the fan never sees and the creator often can't fully audit. On IndieStarlight, a sale is a sale: a fan chooses a specific musician, author, or filmmaker, pays them directly, and that creator gets paid for that specific transaction.
No algorithm standing between you
There's no recommendation engine deciding which creators get amplified and which get buried. Discovery here happens through real curators and real fans — the same people who make the purchases — not a black box optimizing for watch time or ad impressions.
A fan discovers an independent author through a curator's recommendation, buys the book directly from that author's storefront on IndieStarlight, and the payment goes to the author — not into a shared subscription pool that pays out based on total minutes read across millions of other books.
Built by the people using it
Creators, curators, and fans are the three groups this network exists for — not advertisers, and not a platform optimizing engagement for its own sake. As IndieStarlight grows, the direction it takes will be shaped by what actually helps those three groups, not by what maximizes time-on-site.