docs(maker-platform): close Tier-2 PR-FAQ gaps + evolve referral model (negotiable rewards, ranking-neutrality)

PR-FAQ (Tier-2 reviewer gaps):
- Shopify-copies-the-tool: first-class-not-hard framing + cuttle.xyz/LLM-tool
  integration headroom; 'tool is the wedge, network is the moat'
- featured maker's (B-side) consent + economics
- ballpark F (~$75-150k/yr) and the 'F is not the cloud bill' reliability core
- operational drop-time reliability (blast radius + funded core)

Referral-model evolution (PR-FAQ + memo, source-of-truth reconciled):
- platform spread stays FIXED (~3-5%, $-capped) — the network's referral
  revenue line, unchanged in §12
- Maker A's reward becomes NEGOTIABLE above the spread (flat/tiered/max-$ cap,
  renegotiable), floored at the spread; maker<->maker only
- per-relationship approval: B must approve being curated by A
- ranking-neutrality as a STRUCTURAL guarantee: platform ranks for conversion
  but never by referral economics, credible because its spread is constant
- non-maker taste-makers keep uniform, non-biddable rates (peer-respect
  counterweight absent)

Memo ports: §2 (first-class/cuttle), §7 Curated-By guardrails + Referral
economics + catalog-presence + taste-maker tier, §7 partner comp, §12 spread
+ Goodhart guardrails.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/maker-platform-pr-faq.md

@@ -263,23 +263,51 @@ standard is named as later work (§14 #2), not claimed as solved.
 
 **What is "Curated By This Maker," and how do referrals pay?**
 Each storefront carries a section where the maker features other *verified* makers'
-products they genuinely admire. When a buyer follows that link and buys, the
-referred maker (B) pays a **referral fee** (~15%, the Faire/Amazon Handmade
-convention) and the curating maker (A) is *independently* credited (~10–12%) — two
-separate events, so we're never a conduit moving money from B to A (which would be
-regulated money transmission). A's credit is **non-cashable**: it draws down A's own
-future platform fees, so the more you curate, the closer your bill gets to zero
-(§7, "Referral economics"). The spread (~3–5%) is our margin. It works at **n=2** —
-two makers are enough for it to be useful, which is rare for a network feature.
+products they genuinely admire — and **only with the featured maker's approval**: B opts in
+to being curated by A, per relationship, so no one is featured against their will. On a
+referred sale two things stack. **The platform's cut is fixed and never negotiated** — a
+**3–5% spread on the order** (it may scale with the sale and carry a $ cap), the network's
+one piece of referral revenue. **Everything above it is the makers' to set:** A and B define
+A's referral reward through platform tooling — a flat percentage, a tiered rate ("x% on
+orders over $y"), a max-$ cap — and can **renegotiate** it as the relationship evolves, with
+one floor, the platform spread. So B always pays *at least* the spread; if A and B set A's
+reward to zero, **no referral money changes hands and the platform still takes its spread.**
+The two legs stay independent — B pays on B's own invoice, A is *credited* separately — so
+the platform is never a conduit moving money B→A (which would be regulated money
+transmission). A's credit is **non-cashable** (it draws down A's own future platform fees,
+so curating well drives your bill toward zero). It works at **n=2** — two makers are enough
+for it to be useful, rare for a network feature (§7, "Referral economics").
 
 **Won't paid referrals just become advertising in disguise?**
-That's the central risk, and the guardrails are structural (§3, §7). Placement is
-**reputation-staked vouching**, never **pay-for-placement** (retail media): rates are
-**uniform and non-biddable** (you can't pay to rank higher), featuring is capped per
-maker, curation is visibly personal (name + face), and it's biased toward
-*complementary* makers, not direct rivals. The name itself — *verified merchant
-referral network*, not *retail media* — is a guardrail: the moment it starts
-selling slots, it's a self-evident lie.
+That's the central risk, and the guardrail is to separate **placement** from **economics**
+(§3, §7). *Placement* is **reputation-staked vouching, never pay-for-placement**: you cannot
+buy your way into a maker's curation, the platform never sells a slot, featuring is capped
+per maker, visibly personal (name + face), gated by the featured maker's approval, and
+biased toward *complementary* makers, not rivals. The *economics* (A's referral reward) are
+a private term A and B negotiate, floored at the platform's fixed spread — but because
+placement itself is non-biddable and the curator stakes their **own audience's trust**
+(feature junk for the money and your conversions and standing erode), a richer split can't
+buy a feature it didn't earn.
+
+The subtler version: among the items a maker curates, *the platform* decides which to
+surface to a given buyer — and we **do** use algorithms (personalization, popularity) to do
+it, because lifting conversions is the job. The guarantee is that **referral economics are
+never an input to that ranking** — and it's *structural*, not a pinky-swear: because the
+platform earns the **same fixed spread no matter which referred item sells**, it has **no
+incentive** to favor a higher-paying referral, so the ranking optimizes for the buyer's
+conversion, full stop. The name itself — *verified merchant referral network*, not *retail
+media* — is the backstop: the moment it starts selling slots, it's a self-evident lie.
+
+**If I'm the maker being *featured*, do I have a say — and am I just paying to be advertised?**
+Full say — on both the placement and the price. **Nobody features you without your
+approval:** being curated by a specific maker is **opt-in, per relationship** (A can feature
+B only if B agrees), and *buyer-identity* participation is a separate opt-in on top, never
+bundled. **You and the curator set the terms** (above) — you're not handed a rate, you agree
+to one, floored at the platform's fixed spread. And you're **not paying for an ad:** you pay only on an
+*actual referred sale* — incremental business you wouldn't otherwise have had — and the
+placement itself can't be bought (a curator features you only on genuine merit, their own
+audience-trust on the line, capped, name-and-face). Being featured is a *vouch you both
+agreed to*, not a slot — which is exactly why it's worth more than an ad.
 
 **Will you ever link a buyer to my Etsy/Amazon listing?**
 Never (§7; Appendix D). The network never routes a buyer *into* a walled garden —
@@ -379,6 +407,34 @@ structure a commission-optimized incumbent *cannot* copy without betraying its o
 customers (§7, "Why this is the defensible core": Shopify won't build cross-merchant
 shared identity because its DTC merchants would experience it as theft).
 
+**What if Shopify just adds native drops and pre-orders — doesn't the tool wedge evaporate?**
+The answer depends on splitting two things both loosely called "the storefront" (§1, §3,
+§7). The **commodity surface** — cart, catalog, checkout, customer accounts — we
+deliberately *don't* build; we rent it ("build the 20%, rent the 80%," on a headless
+backend like Medusa, or federate over the maker's existing Shopify). The
+**commitment-commerce engine** — scheduled drops, raffle/queue allocation, deposits, clubs,
+made-to-order — is the part we *do* build, and the honest claim isn't that it's *hard*: it's
+that **no continuous (non-campaign) platform treats it as a first-class citizen.** Outside the
+Kickstarter-likes the table-stakes simply aren't covered first-class anywhere, so makers bolt
+the cadence onto tools that treat it as an afterthought. Being its first-class home is also the
+on-ramp to something nobody else is positioned for — wiring in the emerging generative/LLM
+maker tools (e.g. **cuttle.xyz**) that campaign platforms and stock storefronts have no reason
+to integrate, *because* they never made the cadence first-class. (It carries real
+financial/delivery liability too — taking money before delivery — which the
+out-of-the-money-flow architecture handles; but the claim is **first-class + integration
+headroom**, not difficulty.)
+
+But here's the part the doc won't dodge: **the tool is the wedge, not the moat.** The memo
+is explicit that storefront hosting isn't durably defensible — Medusa makes it cheap for
+everyone, and federation means a maker doesn't even *need* our storefront to be in the
+network (§7). The tool earns the cold-start (a real business at zero network liquidity) and
+gets makers in the door; the **durable** moat is the layer Shopify structurally *won't*
+build — the cross-maker **verified-provenance + reputation-staked curation network**, which
+its own DTC merchants would experience as theft (§3, §7, "the defensible core"). So if
+Shopify shipped excellent drops tomorrow it would neutralize a *convenience*, not the moat
+— the reason a maker stays is the network it can't copy without becoming a different
+company.
+
 **What's the architecture, in one breath?**
 Two layers, kept strictly separate (§7, "Storefront architecture"):
 - **Storefront layer (per maker)** — either our white-label storefront (built on
@@ -411,6 +467,24 @@ core (network service, ledger, verification) must be **funded, documented, and m
 than one person deep** — not bus-factor-one. The fragile-perception risk with
 professional makers is real and is something discovery explicitly tests (§8).
 
+**What happens to *my* drop if the platform goes down at 9am Saturday?**
+The honest answer has an architectural half and a staffing half. **Architecturally, the
+blast radius is small for most makers:** you are merchant of record on *your own* processor,
+and if you federate your existing Shopify store your drop and checkout run on *Shopify's*
+infrastructure — so if our cross-tenant network service is down, what degrades is *network
+features* (Curated-By, the buyer feed, the agent feed), **not your ability to take the
+order.** The sale doesn't ride on the moat layer. **Operationally,** for a maker on our
+white-label storefront the drop *does* run on our infrastructure — which is exactly why
+network-service uptime, the money-adjacent ledger, and verification are the **funded,
+documented, more-than-one-deep reliability core** (§12), explicitly *not* volunteer
+best-effort and *not* bus-factor-one. Drops are spiky by nature, and "a storefront falling
+over *during* a drop is the worst possible moment for maker trust" (§7, Hosting) — so the
+spike is designed for (autoscaling infrastructure, load-checked before a real drop), and
+the on-call reliability of those pieces is a **budget line, not a hope.** What the doc won't
+pretend: this is the single point of failure §4 names, so the reliability core is bound with
+structure (funded + redundant), and the fragile-*perception* risk with professional makers
+is something discovery explicitly tests (§8).
+
 **Who decides what "verified" means — and who watches the watchers?**
 Two answers, by time horizon (memo §14 #1 — direction set, mechanics deliberately
 deferred):
@@ -550,9 +624,22 @@ break-even is driven by keeping F lean (the LLM-deflated-cost bet) and by makers
 *graduating and referring*, not merely by adding low-GMV makers; (2) there's also a
 *ceiling* — earn too much, too commercially, and a non-profit risks **UBIT**
 (Unrelated Business Income Tax) or its exemption. An illustrative pass (explicitly
-*shape, not validated values*) puts break-even around **~150–300 makers**, well past
-the **dozen-maker** validation gate — and naming that gap is the point. The numbers
-are variables because n=2 can't calibrate them yet.
+*shape, not validated values*, §12) puts the fixed reliability floor at **F ≈
+$75–150k/yr** — funded core ops + the fee/wallet ledger + the verification audit +
+hosting — and break-even around **~150–300 makers**, where the revenue mix has flipped from thin
+Starter percentages to Pro flat fees + referral spread (≈$170k/yr at ~200 makers under
+those midpoints), well past the **dozen-maker** validation gate — and naming that gap is the
+point.
+
+The number a CFO will press on is F, so the doc is blunt about it: **F is not the cloud
+bill.** The seductive error is to model F as the pilot's tens-of-dollars-a-month GCP
+invoice; the honest F is dominated by **compensated, documented, more-than-one-deep
+ownership** of the reliability core — network-service uptime, the money-adjacent ledger,
+the verification audit — none of which can be best-effort. Under-modeling F is exactly how
+an org clears break-even *on paper* and still dies of bus-factor (§4). The
+LLM-deflated-cost bet is that F can be kept **lean, not that it's near-zero** — and the
+numbers stay variables because n=2 can't calibrate per-maker GMV, churn, or graduation rate
+yet.
 
 **How will you know if it's working?**
 One **North Star: the share of GMV that is cross-maker-referred** (§12). It's near-

docs/maker-platform-strategy.md

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ Build for **independent makers** — positioned as "the curated maker marketplac
 
 Two halves, treated differently:
 
-- **Commitment-commerce engine (the real product).** The maker-native cadence layer Shopify lacks: scheduled drops, pre-orders and deposits, raffle/queue allocation, made-to-order workflows, recurring clubs/memberships, digital-file delivery + licensing where relevant, and variant/bundle handling. This *is* the gnarly 20% and the reason vertical infrastructure here is defensible — emphatically *not* "the same as Shopify." (The white-label storefront is the commodity surface, subsumed here: build the least of it you can, rent the rest.)
+- **Commitment-commerce engine (the real product).** The maker-native cadence layer Shopify lacks: scheduled drops, pre-orders and deposits, raffle/queue allocation, made-to-order workflows, recurring clubs/memberships, digital-file delivery + licensing where relevant, and variant/bundle handling. This *is* the gnarly 20% and the reason vertical infrastructure here is defensible — emphatically *not* "the same as Shopify." The defensibility isn't that the cadence is *hard* to build — it's that **no continuous (non-campaign) platform treats it as a first-class citizen**, so the table-stakes go uncovered everywhere outside the Kickstarter-likes (Appendix B); being its first-class home is also the on-ramp to integrating emerging generative/LLM maker tools (e.g. **cuttle.xyz**) that campaign platforms and stock storefronts have no reason to touch. (The white-label storefront is the commodity surface, subsumed here: build the least of it you can, rent the rest.)
 - **Cross-maker demand network (the moat).** The flow asset, accruing as a *byproduct* of the engine. Every drop/pre-order captures a buyer who *follows* a maker and commits early; a base of drop-followers across many makers is the embryonic cross-merchant identity network — the niche-scoped Shop Pay equivalent. Stock commerce gives you people who bought once; commitment commerce gives you people who *wait for* makers and commit ahead — a far stronger flow asset. Reputation-staked cross-maker curation turns that into *earned* demand, not just relocated demand.
 
 The reframe: commitment commerce is not a feature of the storefront — it *is* the platform, and the mechanism that builds the flow moat, rather than something engineered separately alongside it.
@@ -152,7 +152,8 @@ Model A is reputation-staked human curation (the anti-pollution, can't-be-gamed
 **Guardrails:**
 
 - **Attribution is stateless — no identity layer required.** A signed referral token (origin maker + item + expiry + nonce) rides the A→B handoff into B's order; you read it to bill B and credit A. It tracks the *referral path*, not the buyer, so it works in Phase 1 for guests and sovereign makers. Persistent identity is only for the *durable* effects (follows, cross-session credit).
-- **Commission-corruption trap.** When Curated-By pays well, curation drifts to "feature whoever converts/pays most." Keep it reputation-staked: cap how much any maker can feature, make it visibly personal (name + face), prefer "A owns/uses this," and never sell slots. The sincere vouch is the whole value.
+- **Commission-corruption trap.** When Curated-By pays well, curation drifts to "feature whoever converts/pays most." Keep it reputation-staked: **B must approve being curated by A** (per-relationship opt-in — placement is consented on both sides, distinct from the default-on *catalog presence* switch below), cap how much any maker can feature, make it visibly personal (name + face), prefer "A owns/uses this," and never sell slots. The sincere vouch is the whole value.
+- **Ranking neutrality — structural, not a promise.** Among the items a maker curates, the *platform* chooses which to surface to a given buyer, and it **will** use algorithms (personalization, popularity) to lift conversions — that's the platform's job. The guarantee is that **referral economics are never an input to that ranking**, and it holds *by construction*: the platform's spread is the **same percentage no matter which referred item sells** ("Referral economics" below), so the platform has no incentive to favor a higher-paying referral. Structural indifference is a *stronger* guarantee than a flat uniform rate — it survives makers negotiating their own rewards.
 - **Complementary, not substitute.** Nudge toward complementary makers (a maker surfaces an adjacent craft, not a direct rival) — complementary curation is generative; substitute curation is cannibalistic and makers won't do it.
 
 ### How the platform gets paid
@@ -163,10 +164,10 @@ Out of the money flow, your fee is a **platform fee billed in arrears via ACH/in
 - **Charge on captured/fulfilled orders, not pledges** — don't bill money that never cleared.
 - **Market the all-in transparently:** "our fee + your own processor ≈ X% vs Etsy's ~20%." Not bundling processing is the wedge — say it in numbers.
 
-**Referral economics.** On a referred order, charge Maker B a **referral fee** (≈15%, Faire/Amazon-Handmade convention) and *independently* credit Maker A. Keep them as **two separate events** — B→Platform (a fee on B's invoice) and Platform→A (a credit you extend) — so you're **principal on both sides, never a conduit** moving money B→A. That independence keeps it out of money-transmission territory, and holds *only* while A's credit is non-cashable.
+**Referral economics.** On a referred order, two layers stack. **The platform's spread is fixed and never negotiated** — ≈3–5% of the order (it may scale with the sale and carry a $ cap), the network's one piece of referral revenue, and *the same percentage regardless of which referred item sells* — which is what makes the ranking-neutrality guarantee structural rather than a promise ("Curated By This Maker" above). **Maker A's reward sits above the spread and is the makers' to set:** A and B negotiate it through platform tooling — a flat %, a tiered rate ("x% over $y"), a max-$ cap — and may **renegotiate** as the relationship evolves, with one floor, the spread. So B always pays *at least* the spread; set A's reward to zero and no referral money changes hands while the platform still earns its spread. (This negotiability is **scoped to maker↔maker** referrals; the pure non-maker taste-maker tier keeps **uniform, non-biddable** rates — it lacks the peer-respect counterweight — see "Non-maker referrers" below.) Keep the legs as **two separate events** — B→Platform (a fee on B's invoice) and Platform→A (a credit you extend) — so you're **principal on both sides, never a conduit** moving money B→A. That independence keeps it out of money-transmission territory, and holds *only* while A's credit is non-cashable.
 
-- The referral fee **subsumes** the standard fee on referred orders (one clean "15% because referred"), rather than stacking toward Etsy-like ~19%.
-- **B's fee and A's credit are independent numbers; the spread is platform margin** (e.g., charge B 15%, credit A 10–12%, keep 3–5%) — one of the few places the network itself generates revenue.
+- The referred order's total **subsumes** the standard fee (one clean "this is the referred rate"), rather than stacking toward Etsy-like ~19%.
+- **The fixed spread is the network's referral revenue line** (≈3–5%, $-capped) — not negotiable, and the *same percentage whatever is referred*; A's negotiated reward is the layer on top, non-cashable (below). One of the few places the network itself generates revenue.
 - **Non-cashable fee-offset wallet.** A's credit draws down *future platform fees first* — driving the curation flywheel ("curate → wipe out your fees"), lowering collection risk, and cleaner on tax (a fee discount, not income). **Cashing out re-opens the money-flow door** (rent BaaS — Connect/Treasury/Dwolla); a deliberate Phase-2 crossing, not a toggle.
 - **Pending → cleared settlement.** Credit A as *pending* (not spendable) and hold B's fee pending; settle **both legs together** after B's refund window (≈14–30 days) closes, so in-window refunds void both atomically with zero clawback. Negative balances are a debit on a continuing account: reverse pending, then available, then push any shortfall to the next ACH invoice; keep the ACH mandate active through offboarding; a rolling reserve only if a few high-volume curators make it material.
 
@@ -183,7 +184,7 @@ Out of the money flow, your fee is a **platform fee billed in arrears via ACH/in
 
 **Opt-in network model — carrot, not stick.** It self-selects the commons-minded makers the network works for. The benefit must be **concentrated and visibly fast** or opt-in becomes a ghost town. Keep the asymmetry **additive** (joiners get referral income, placement, cross-promotion, fee offset, feed surfacing) — never **punitive** (don't cripple the standalone storefront to force joining). Design for **granular** participation, **reciprocity** (surfacing proportional to participation), and a **social-proof opt-in moment** ("makers you respect sent each other 200 buyers last month — want in?").
 
-**Don't bundle "on our storefront ⇒ on the network."** Forcing full network participation on storefront makers is the coercion the opt-in model rules out, and it weakens the storefront's standalone (n=1) value. Split two switches: **catalog presence** (your products *can* be discovered/curated/fed) is reasonable to **default-on (opt-out)** for storefront makers (low-friction, low-sensitivity); **buyer-identity participation** (your *buyers* are recognized cross-maker) stays a **separate, consent-gated opt-in** (sovereignty-sensitive, and it's the buyer's data). Take the convenience (auto-catalog-sync); never the coercion (forced identity sharing).
+**Don't bundle "on our storefront ⇒ on the network."** Forcing full network participation on storefront makers is the coercion the opt-in model rules out, and it weakens the storefront's standalone (n=1) value. Split two switches: **catalog presence** (your products *can* be discovered/curated/fed) is reasonable to **default-on (opt-out)** for storefront makers (low-friction, low-sensitivity) — though being *featured in a specific maker's Curated-By* (a vouch carrying referral economics) is a **per-relationship opt-in** the featured maker approves (§7, "Curated By This Maker"); **buyer-identity participation** (your *buyers* are recognized cross-maker) stays a **separate, consent-gated opt-in** (sovereignty-sensitive, and it's the buyer's data). Take the convenience (auto-catalog-sync); never the coercion (forced identity sharing).
 
 **Why this is the defensible core.** Shopify *won't* build cross-merchant shared identity — its customers (sovereignty-seeking DTC merchants) would experience it as the platform claiming their buyers, betraying the exact promise Shopify sells. Shopify does the *resell* network (share *products*) but not the *referral* network (share *buyers* with attribution). Your bet: community-embedded makers relate to shared identity as *belonging*, not theft. The moat isn't the storefront, the commitment-commerce mechanics, or the resell network (Shopify has that) — it's the **cross-maker identity-and-attribution layer**, the one asset an island-based incumbent is fenced out of by its own positioning.
 
@@ -261,7 +262,7 @@ Any website can join as a *referrer* — a taste-maker/curator (a hobby YouTuber
 - **Unverified referrer (open tier).** Generates referral links to verified makers, earns on conversion, but is **not surfaced in any trust-dependent surface** — a traffic source, self-limiting (a bad one doesn't convert) and contained (can't touch trust surfaces).
 - **Verified taste-maker (trust tier).** A legitimate community voice verified as a *trusted curator* (not a maker), reputation-staked and slashable — badge, surfacing, loses status for shilling. Verification separates the genuine taste-maker (additive) from the affiliate-spam farm (corrosive).
 
-**The load-bearing guardrail: uniform, non-biddable referral rates.** A maker-curator's commission pull is counterbalanced by peer respect; a pure taste-maker's incentive is more purely the fee, so if makers could set different rates, taste-makers would chase the highest payer — retail media through the referrer door. A uniform rate means they feature on **taste, not who pays most.** Plus **disclosure/labeling** (distinguish a maker's peer vouch from a taste-maker's disclosed-affiliate pick; FTC-required anyway), **referrer-only/one-directional** (never a destination, never a maker-verifier), and the **no-walled-garden rule** still holds.
+**The load-bearing guardrail for this tier: uniform, non-biddable referral rates.** A maker-curator's commission pull is counterbalanced by peer respect (and the structural ranking-neutrality guarantee), which is why **maker↔maker rewards are negotiable above the fixed spread** (§7, "Referral economics"). A pure taste-maker's incentive is more purely the fee, so that same negotiability would let them chase the highest payer — retail media through the referrer door. **For non-maker taste-makers, therefore, rates stay uniform and non-biddable** — they feature on **taste, not who pays most.** Plus **disclosure/labeling** (distinguish a maker's peer vouch from a taste-maker's disclosed-affiliate pick; FTC-required anyway), **referrer-only/one-directional** (never a destination, never a maker-verifier), and the **no-walled-garden rule** still holds.
 
 **Why it's worth doing:** taste-makers are the **net-new-demand engine** the maker-only network is structurally weak at — a third source alongside maker-curation (deepens) and agents (reach), and the most community-native (a trusted human voice, not an algorithm).
 
@@ -316,7 +317,7 @@ Now that Medusa exists and the network federates over any storefront, *centering
 
 Implementation consultants (community-embedded especially) onboard the **high-touch tail** without the network becoming a services business, doubling as community-aligned distribution and mirroring the partner ecosystems that grew Shopify and Medusa — a second flywheel you *enable* (certification, a directory, the referral-income share below) but don't *staff*. Guardrails: keep the product **genuinely self-serve for the median maker** (if makers *need* a consultant for a basic store, the product failed and partners are masking it), and structure partners as **referral/implementation partners, not white-label resellers**, so they don't become the relationship-owner and disintermediate you.
 
-**How partners are paid — a negotiated, tapering share of the maker's *earned* referral income.** A maker may opt to bring on a partner to stand up their storefront and onboard them onto the referral network, and pay for that help out of the upside it creates: the partner earns a **share of the referral income the maker earns *as a curator*** (the 10–12% Curated-By credits in "Referral economics" above) — not a fee on the maker's sales, and not a cut of the platform's spread. The natural shape is **front-loaded and tapering** — e.g. 100% of the maker's first $X in referral earnings to the partner, then a declining share as the maker's curation takes off — a *help-me-start, earn-out* deal, not a perpetual tax. The two negotiate and structure the schedule through **platform tooling**; the network stores the agreed terms and settles the split. This is the *one* partner-compensation leg the network touches, and it rides the same invariants as the rest of the money model, so it adds posture, not exposure:
+**How partners are paid — a negotiated, tapering share of the maker's *earned* referral income.** A maker may opt to bring on a partner to stand up their storefront and onboard them onto the referral network, and pay for that help out of the upside it creates: the partner earns a **share of the referral income the maker earns *as a curator*** (the negotiated Curated-By referral reward in "Referral economics" above) — not a fee on the maker's sales, and not a cut of the platform's spread. The natural shape is **front-loaded and tapering** — e.g. 100% of the maker's first $X in referral earnings to the partner, then a declining share as the maker's curation takes off — a *help-me-start, earn-out* deal, not a perpetual tax. The two negotiate and structure the schedule through **platform tooling**; the network stores the agreed terms and settles the split. This is the *one* partner-compensation leg the network touches, and it rides the same invariants as the rest of the money model, so it adds posture, not exposure:
 
 - **Out of the flow, principal on both sides.** The platform never routes the maker's money to the partner (that is custody / transmission — Appendix C.2's line); it independently *reduces* the maker's referral credit and *extends* the partner a credit or payout — two events, principal on each, never a conduit (the §7 referral-economics pattern).
 - **A fourth consumer of the one Phase-2 cashable rail.** The maker's referral credit is non-cashable (fee-offset); a partner who isn't itself a maker has no platform fees to offset, so — exactly like the verified taste-maker and the kit pure-supplier — it needs *cashable* payout over the same scoped Connect/mass-pay crossing Phase 2 already builds. (A partner who *is* a maker can take non-cashable wallet credit instead.) One more rider on that crossing, not new money plumbing; Phase 1 can accrue the partner's split as *pending* and pay it on rail launch.
@@ -505,7 +506,7 @@ Per the decision above, this is a **parametric** model: the fee *rates* are desi
 **Two revenue lines, both from §7.**
 
 - **Subscription.** Cold-start makers pay Starter (≈2–4% of captured GMV, no/low monthly); at scale they auto-graduate to Pro (flat **$29–49/mo**, 0%). The flat Pro fee is the *predictable* margin; the Starter percentage is cold-start-friendly but thin on low-GMV makers.
-- **Referral spread.** On a referred order, Maker B pays ≈15% and Maker A is credited 10–12%; the **spread (≈3–5%) is platform margin** (§7, "Referral economics"). But A's credit is a *non-cashable draw against A's own future platform fees* — so a referral credit is **foregone future fee revenue**, not free money. The model must net it: referral activity generates spread *and* erodes subscription/fee revenue as credits are drawn. Treat the credit as a cost line, not a wash.
+- **Referral spread.** On a referred order the platform takes a **fixed ≈3–5% spread** (the network's referral revenue line), and Maker A earns a **negotiated reward above it** (§7, "Referral economics"). The spread is the platform margin modeled here; A's reward is a *non-cashable draw against A's own future platform fees* — so it is **foregone future fee revenue**, not free money. The model must net it: referral activity generates spread *and* erodes subscription/fee revenue as credits are drawn. Treat the credit as a cost line, not a wash.
 
 **A note on partner-network splits.** Where a maker pays a partner out of its earned referral income (§7, "Partner / consultant network"), the split **redistributes the maker's curator income, not the platform's spread** — the platform stays principal on both legs and its 3–5% margin is unchanged. So partner comp does not move the platform's break-even directly; it is **maker-borne activation cost, paid from the upside**, that lowers the friction of turning a maker into an *active referrer*. Model it as a driver of the referral-activation rate (and thus of the North Star, below), not as a platform cost line.
 
@@ -569,7 +570,7 @@ The §9 gates are all qualitative — *do makers refer you? is the pain consiste
 
 **The order-history asset computes all of this for free.** §7 already commits it: *"One asset, three uses — the same order history powers the referral ledger, the network-health metrics, and this reporting."* The cross-tenant vantage is the only place cross-maker-referred GMV and cross-maker repeat *can* be computed — no single-store tool sees across stores (which is itself moat-deepening, §7). So these metrics are not new instrumentation to fund; they fall out of the ledger the referral system already requires.
 
-**Goodhart caution — the metric must measure *earned* referral.** A North Star is a target, and a target invites gaming. The corrupt way to lift "cross-maker-referred GMV" is to *manufacture* referrals — pay for placement, juice the slots — which is precisely the retail-media drift §3 and §7 ("Curated By This Maker") exist to forbid. The North Star is only valid as a measure of **reputation-staked, earned** cross-referral; optimized the wrong way it rebuilds Etsy's pollution from the inside, through the dashboard. This is the OHM **value** point in metric form: the number must track real value to buyers and makers, not gamed volume — so pair the North Star with the §7 anti-corruption guardrails (uniform non-biddable rates, capped per-maker featuring, reputation on the line) rather than reading it naked.
+**Goodhart caution — the metric must measure *earned* referral.** A North Star is a target, and a target invites gaming. The corrupt way to lift "cross-maker-referred GMV" is to *manufacture* referrals — pay for placement, juice the slots — which is precisely the retail-media drift §3 and §7 ("Curated By This Maker") exist to forbid. The North Star is only valid as a measure of **reputation-staked, earned** cross-referral; optimized the wrong way it rebuilds Etsy's pollution from the inside, through the dashboard. This is the OHM **value** point in metric form: the number must track real value to buyers and makers, not gamed volume — so pair the North Star with the §7 anti-corruption guardrails (structural ranking-neutrality — the platform's spread is constant, so its algorithms ignore referral economics; capped per-maker featuring; per-relationship approval; reputation on the line; uniform rates for non-maker taste-makers) rather than reading it naked.
 
 ### Volunteer-sustainability economics — funding the critical core off bus-factor-one