Should saidit eventually adopt a subscription model?

submitted by foreskin_burglar from self.SaidIt

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[–]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