I’ve been thinking a lot recently about PeerTube, Loops, Bandwagon, and other platforms in the Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.
It‘s a two sided blade, but I get what you mean.
On one hand monetization is the thing that ruins platforms for me because it invites grifters and even decent people are becoming obsessed with numbers. Most people see content creation only as a career path and not something to do for fun anymore. I find that depressing at times.
On the other hand we currently live in a capitalist world and have to play by those rules to some extend. I learned most of the things I do for a living from Youtube because professionals do Blender tutorials as a side gig or even for a living. There probably wouldn‘t be nearly as much knowledge out there without this motivator. Or at least not in this form that is easy to understand for me. The official Blender documentation usually isn‘t the first place I‘m searching through when I have a problem.
So I see where you‘re coming from but it‘s a fine line between helpful and loathsome.
What if there was a federated platform for supporting the channels you like? Maybe something like Patreon? Or how about some sort of merch store for people who can sell the things they make?
Maybe something like Patreon
Well we do have Liberapay. It’s not perfect in that it only addresses the payment angle (with the issue around processors noted by the other reply still present), and doesn’t allow for subscriber only content, but it’s something.
I think between something like this and a few other things (dunno much about PeerTube etc. or if ‘private’ posts are a thing where you could maintain a ‘mailing list’ of donor accounts and grant them access to exclusive stuff), it’s possible to cobble something together. Lot of management would be required in the backend compared to more mainstream approaches at this point, though.
Just thinking outloud, there’s probably stuff I’m not considering here. Re: an eStore…idk, only thing I can think of is a DIY webstore relying on emails and money transfer services if trying to avoid mainstream eCommerce stuff like Shopify or whatever (same way people used to sell pot on the clearweb back in the very early days, lol).
You would still need a payment processor, which takes a huge chunk of the cake in fees.
I have high hopes for GNU Taler in that regard, as it is in theory super easy to include in any website and makes tipping small sums very feasible.
But in reality it is bogged down by bureocractic hurdles on the banking side, and I am starting to lose a bit of hope due to perpetual delays even after some banks promised to support it as part of an EU grant via Nlnet.
Where’d my other comment go? Editorial censorship takes this from “a really bad idea” to a super fucked up attempt at poisoning this beautiful place with the worship of wealth
Client side support for a tipping link (Koffee, Patreon, crypto wallet, whatever the user’s choice is) that is built in to the UI would go a long way.
Agree, no need to over-engineer this…
Like what peertube has?
Nice, I dont use Peertube as often as I’d like because I haven’t found the right creators for me. Good to know they already have this, should be an example to the rest of the platforms
PeerTube’s support button is, at best, a lightbox that holds a text string. It’s fine for highlighting links, but you still kind of have to dance around with having an account in another system to make the payment.
Really happy to see this discussion here. Here is no “correct” path here, but is deeply important that the one we choose is intentional and thoughtfully considered by the folks these platforms serve
Both their audience and their contributors.
Thanks for bringing it up. Nobody likes to talk about money in the Fediverse, but it’s a fact of life.
I’ve stopped making Peertube videos lately mainly because I got tired of donating. We’ve got to come up with a better solution.
Money being considered to be a “fact of life“ is the sad part here. It’s not a natural system that just is and we cannot change. That doesn’t mean I disagree with you. I‘d be upset not getting a paycheck at the end of this month and rely on money like everyone else because we live in this late stage capitalist hell. But I refuse to accept any monetary system as a natural given, that’s probably all i‘m trying to say.
Keep it away is my strong advice. Having to deal with banks will mean having to deal with regulations. Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros. Having to deal with paywalls is a barrier to entry
The internet was a better place without money touching everything!
I don’t have strong feelings either way, but money does touch everything, overtly or not, when it comes to civilisation. Time spent volunteering on Fediverse projects is effectively money spent (at least to some degree), and instances cost time & fees to maintain.
But I guess to argue against myself-- you have to think that without some kind of ongoing responsible oversight, then the worst aspects of capitalism might predictably find a way to screw it all up if left to its own devices. Then again, maybe the scale involved makes that less likely. *shrug*
Yeah, I get it. Volunteers’ time should be valued. But, there is more to valuing than money is my counter: authority, respect, community engagement, and a fraternal/paternal element
I salute all mods. And I pay for admins
I mean, you’re kind of lifting my point in to a broader area that I wasn’t speaking to at the time.
Of course I agree with all that you said. But I was talking strictly in the context of OP’s framework.
Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros
The internet was also a better place when people using it were more open minded
Open minded to being scammed? No thanks.
Your argument sounds like “pc are bads because of virus”
If 99.9% of PCs were solely made to steal your credit card info, then yes.
Most of crypto volume is done on bitcoin and ethereum network which are built to be less scammy than a bank. You could indeed argue that 99.9% of existing cryptocurrencies are scam because there are thousand existing projects that imitates bitcoin, similarly one could argue that 99.9% iphones copies are a scam
lmao, the blockchain that popularized NFTs is less scammy than a bank? touch grass
Bitcoin and ethereum blockchains are built to be open, public and decentralized. The difference between these and a bank could be compared to the difference between reddit and lemmy. Is reddit a scam? Perhaps not on a large scale but it has all the potential to become a scam once its executives decide to do so. Lemmy is not owned by a single person which makes it way more harder to “control”.
Bitcoin and Ethereum only have liquidity in the market because scammers use it for their pig butchering etc. scams. And all the major exchanges are complicit in that. Many Banks are scammy, yes, but not that scammy by a long shot. Sorry to burst your bubble 🤷
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy?tab=readme-ov-file#crypto
You can support lemmy by donating cryptocurrencies, they are not only used by scammers.
A free and direct tip system that doesn’t force you to use credit cards would be quite useful
I tried to use a gift certificate to donate to dbzer0 last night. It didn’t work because of a zip code field. I just want to look at cat pictures and make a snarky comment every so often without a facist paramilitary kicking in my front door. Fuck me, right?
If you’re going to spend money at all then you’ll just have to give some of it (or all of it) to a totally overpowered construct of evil. If you don’t then they might start to lose power, and boy howdy they just can not have that happen. Oh, and make sure you continue to distrust your fellow man because if you all start working together you might decide that things should change.
Maybe this is a pipedream but I think mods should be paid for their labor.
Patreon kinda fits that, but I’m not sure about their open-sourceness
OpenCollective is a pretty solid open source contender in my experience. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely workable.
Artists need exposure before monetization imho, which currently fedi lacks severely. So discoverability is what I suggest as priority to work on.
That said, algorithm free is the draw of fedi as well and I personally don’t want my feed filled with excessive ad or self promo spam. Getting the right middle ground will be tricky.
Where do you think would be an affordable place to advertise the fediverse?
I think the fediverse should advertise it’s self in a simple slogan that can lead the normal user into a more in depth explanation of what, why and how. When I first discovered Lemmy, I didn’t know what the fediverse was, it felt really strange
Maybe it’s just nostalgia but in my opinion, with youtube it went all to shit the moment the money started to be involved. Algorithm chasing, advertisement, reactive content, sponsors, quickly generated videos, … and all the other shit.
So if monetization, then let’s try to avoid same mistakes
One seemingly enormous difference is that YT is a for-profit platform owned by a huge business (Google), not a decentralised network run by many small volunteers. FWIW.
Then don’t post in the fedi.
Because you ain’t doing that.People pay money to the ISP. Usually too much money. ISP should distribute monies to content providers and leave the users alone.
If Fediverse software starts encouraging monetization, I don’t think the userbase will even maintain the current strength.
