Should saidit eventually adopt a subscription model?

submitted by foreskin_burglar from self.SaidIt

There’s a pretty good argument for this now. Years ago, people would never even THINK of paying for social media. But now we see the consequences of getting things for free. People have no say in what happens on Facebook or Twitter— ad dollars and sensationalism do. Do you think they would ban and censor so much if they knew their user base could rip away their funding?

A small paywall would also prevent spam and bots from trashing the place, and would likely also keep people from flooding over to hijack the platform and drown out the real community.

Additionally if enough people subscribed, it could prove to be a much more effective way of improving the site rather than relying on Patreon.

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[–][deleted]  (26 children)

[deleted]

    [–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 4 fun -  (11 children)

    Narrow minded.

    [–][deleted]  (10 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (9 children)

      Depends what you use it for. I'm trying to develop several projects to utilize SaidIt/WikiSpooks and the community - and I'm very willing to donate/pay SaidIt/WikiSpooks.

      It would be silly to close it all off. There are private subs. External crypto and/or payments could be made for desired services.

      Ve have vays to make you pay.

      [–][deleted]  (8 children)

      [deleted]

        [–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (7 children)

        How about this: I consider my contributions greater than average, and my time worth money. I could be deluded, but obviously, I don't think so.

        Alternatively I could get a job, do the grind, and find a bit of time to "socialize" and pay. I'd rather be free and socialize for free. If I didn't land on SaidIt I would have looked for one like it or made my own.

        I've already stated to SaidIt and WikiSpooks that if they get desperate, more desperate than me (a low bar), then I'd help.

        January has and will be crazy, so I've stayed my exit-ation, but I'll soon be leaving most of SaidIt for a while.

        [–][deleted]  (6 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (5 children)

          Do they need to?

          I'm a voluntarist, and most people are and act like it generally, whether they realize it or not. The difference is that most also build on top of it with rules and dogmas and tribal identities and such.

          How do you see it?

          [–][deleted]  (4 children)

          [deleted]

            [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

            I don't know enough about Reddit or Ruqqus, beyond what I hear here. Reddit is completely compromised, corporate, censored, and unreliable - so supporting SaidIt is supporting free thought. If the content on Ruqqus is as good as SaidIt then I suppose it's good to have competition - and it's also good to experiment with different economic models in the free market. I prefer the donate if you can if you like it model.

            Free is rarely free, and too often if it's free then you're the product or target.

            [–]Zapped 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (13 children)

            Actually, it would probably bring in more money than the model Mags has now. People tend to use things when they pay for it, or pay more for it. Look at your local soft-ball league. Teams that make their players pay a few dollars to cover t-shirts tend to have more participation. The ones that have 100% sponsorship, often have trouble keeping a consistent line-up. I think the donations here is less than $100 a month. If 20 users paid $5 a month, it would reach that.

            [–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

            M7 is way beyond retarded on the financial front, IMO. If you look at /s/DecentralizeAllThings and most of my subs, I've got a grey speech bubble space in the top right below "search". I kept trying to get /u/magnora7 and/or /u/d3rr to teach me the necessary CSS to make that little space a "Top Announcements/Issues" for SaidIt - ideally under admin's control (different than the sidebox under the sub's mods' control). Of course this short list of truncated descriptions would link to posts properly explaining the issues, and of course in my STRONG opinion it should always have "donate" there (except for exceptionally busy days crowding the "Top Issues" box). Sure "donate" is at the bottom of every page, but few notice that. Also, in 2021 I aim to start a transparent open online store, including SaidIt merch to help support SaidIt, our creators, projects, etc. - so featuring the "store" would be nice too.

            To be fair, I'm completely retarded and irresponsible in my own finances and self-preservation. But I'm trying to turn that around.

            Apparently M7 has a gig that affords him the luxury of supporting this site for the first 2-3 years until the donations rolled in.

            M7 has also expressed the idea of an "elevated" version of SaidIt. It might already exist. It would not be for fun, shit-posting, etc. I would hope that it be created more democratically, and the subs be MUCH MUCH MUCH more organized, ideally by consensus, rather than chaos. I would not object to this forum being $5 a month, but I'd have to budget that - literally more than 1% of my current situation.

            [–]magnora7 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

            We've had zero funding issues from inception.

            Unlike other sites that way over-spend and shut down because of it.

            I'd say saidit's finances are actually brilliant compared to these other sites that have it as their Achilles heel and are always one paycheck away from being shut down. We actually have stability because of low costs. That's why I don't need to continuously beg for donations (which drives people away, btw)

            Apparently M7 has a gig that affords him the luxury of supporting this site for the first 2-3 years until the donations rolled in.

            That's a really weird way to phrase my having an extra $400 over the course of a year.

            [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

            I have to salute you for keeping costs minimal. I suppose even I could focus on a $400 project. I think I spend that or more each year on digital hoarding hard drives. And I suspect my garden will be much more to start this year.

            Plus the time and effort.

            Regardless, if you made the "donate" more prominent then you could fulfill your coding wishlist by hiring code cowboys and such. I suppose if it ain't broke...

            [–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

            If we are ever in financial trouble I will be sure to move the donate button to a more obvious place

            [–]magnora7 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

            So your plan is for me to pull out the rug from everyone, and require them to pay to be here?

            You realize that would immediately kill 99% of the traffic to this site, and then it'd be dead inside of a month, right?

            [–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

            I said it before, I like the idea of tips for comments people like, real small amounts. House can take a rake. Even a rake from nickles and dimes adds up. It'd be an extra revenue stream without any burden on the users, totally voluntary.

            Plus how cool would it be to join a site that pays you for popular comments.

            [–]magnora7 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

            Yeah I want to do that. I want to start a crypto for the site too, to use for tipping. I think that'd be awesome. Saiditcoin. I just need to figure out how to do it. I think I want to copy dogecoin, they have a good open-source design and dogecoin tipping software has already been written for reddit so we might be able to use that code to make something for saidit.

            [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

            Or Gizmocoin, lol.

            [–]JasonCarswell 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

            For years they've been considering some crypto stuff, though what and how I don't know.

            [–]Zapped 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

            I am not advocating that at all. I like it the way it is. I think leaving it free to use keeps the most traffic and diversity. I was only replying to income generation. While I think subscription would bring in more money, it would also bring in and keep more "like minded" people. But I am not an internetster or webinator (or marketing expert), so I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

            [–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

            I mean it might be a good idea for a new site, but there's no way to attract users when there's no users to begin with. So that means we'd have to put in bot traffic and bot posts to create the appearance of lots of users (which I don't want to do).

            If I just opened up a new site with a $5 entry fee, then I think literally maybe 10 people would sign up. And in a week it would be dead.

            It's just not a workable model imo. Especially when this is an anonymous forum, people don't want to give payment info. So then I'd have to take only crypto. And that again limits the pool of people who would be able to join.

            I like the idea, it's kind of unworkable in reality imo

            [–]Pomegranate 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

            Do you think they would ban and censor so much if they knew their user base could rip away their funding?

            Yes, because it's not about money. They'll find funding elsewhere and the people who want to censor have more of it.

            [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 6 fun2 insightful - 5 fun3 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

            only dumb people pay for things you can get for free that is why the most profitable music these days is rap and country

            [–]JasonCarswell 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

            Narrow minded.

            [–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

            We shouldn't even consider this until Saidit can't support itself from donations alone.

            [–]magnora7 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

            Yeah, which we are a long ways away from. This site literally costs $81 a month to run. It's nothing. Our donations cover our costs, and even if they didn't, it not like it's hard to find that much money.

            This site is a public utility, for the public good. It's not a profit-making machine. And I don't know why anyone would want it to be, either.

            [–]JasonCarswell 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

            Sort of.

            Naysayers have only considered their way of thinking.

            Consider another way: paying for trustworthy high quality content.

            The main reason most folks are sheeple is because they don't have time, interest, or motivation for truth-seeking and deeper contextual understanding. Some would pay to have this work done for them.

            Currently on SaidIt people must spend the time to dig through the endless posts that range from mediocre to shit with the occasional good one. If you had a team mining the mountains of shit for the gold (avoiding fool's gold) then you could save yourself countless hours, days, weeks - time that could be better spent with family, at work, in the garden, in your community, etc.

            Team

            We'd need to assemble a good team and clear goals, ideally with 100% transparency. Drafts could be prepared on wiki pages before final assembly (with caution for multiple users overwriting).

            Value

            We'd need to prove our value by aggregating the best of the best on this SaidIt aggregator to present it professionally and concisely with context, in a reliable manner. More than just collecting the best articles and media, it would be important to collect opposing views on issues and offer something not found elsewhere. Content to be determined by participants.

            Rewards

            Develop transparent trustworthy collection and reward systems. Ideally a fair portion would be donated to SaidIt. (In addition to financial security measures, we'd need to be wary of infiltration, corruption, etc.)

            Volumes

            Build up a body of work that could be published and or used for reference. Ideally all content would be free to all, however, it might be advisable to provide donors earlier access, or something similar.

            Editions

            Clear titles for your projects. I propose the following titles for the dual meaning of "critical" (importance and skeptical/analytical), the site branding, and the obvious scheduling. I'd assume the daily content would be focused on hustling it out there, less polished, and preparing content to be refined for the less frequent editions.

            Critical SaidIt Monthly

            Critical SaidIt Weekly

            Critical SaidIt Daily

            Marketing

            All this work would be wasted if there weren't folks sharing it and promoting it's existence. Good branding and marketing would be necessary for further growth. If a dedicated sub or few were to wear thin a dedicated website might offer more for folks, including a more dynamic layout, graphics, media, merch store, etc.

            If...

            Ultimately it depends if we have the interest, the talent, the motivation with follow-through, and if that's enough to compel a supportive following to grow. If James Corbett can do it, then we could do it - if we were determined.

            Who dares to try to change the world?