this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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If other people want to pay and be paid, that's fine, but for a lot of people in the open source sphere it leaves a bit of a bad taste.
Basically it becomes something very different once it's a product you're selling. I'm honestly not sure it's a good advice - your users will rightfully expect a lot more from you if they pay for the product, and you'll probably not make enough money for it to really make sense. So it'll be more work, more obligations, and monetary incentives won't be strong enough for it to make sense.
Encouraging users to make donations to cover the cost of operation, on the other hand, makes all the sense in the world.
The handful of paid customers I have on Communick are better than any "supporter" I had on my open source projects. They understand the value of their time, expectations are adjusted with proper communication and none of them act entitled just because they pay.
I strongly believe that we need to change the general mentality and that charging a little bit from everyone is better than relying on few generous people to make up for freeloaders
I'm happy it's working for you! Communick also seems to be a bit of a different concept than paying a monthly fee for a user on a Mastodon instance.
At least personally, I'm willing to give a monthly contribution to my Mastodon instance to keep it up and running, but if it started charging its users (even if it was a smaller sum than what I currently contribute) I would cut the donations and flee elsewhere. I guess I'm neither a rational consumer nor a "good" supporter, but that's just who I am I guess.
Of course it's great if people can have healthy transactional relationships. And we need to normalize paying for products like software and social media, even if it's available for free. But having the user-generated internet hidden behind a paywall will not, for me, ever be an acceptable solution.
Moderation wise, it works. Business-wise, not so much.
That is exactly how it works. One membership = one account for Mastodon/Lemmy/Matrix/Funkwhale
But it's not paywalled! The websites are visible for anyone. Anyone can follow Communick users. The only thing that is different is that people that sign up for Communick are paying from the get-go for the service they are being provided, like any other utility.
@rglullis @cabbage In a way, it's just like splitting utility bills with flatmates.
Many instances do the same. They require members to pay at least a (reasonable) minimum amount in a year. This is also well stated since day 0 in their registration form.