@deadsuperhero agree 100%. It needs to be simple and supported out of the box, but also extensible.

@deadsuperhero there feels there really should be some middle ground between "Big Capitalism" and allowing (even encouraging) people to make some money from what they do.

@deadsuperhero as a (tiny!) business on Mastodon I agree. I'm on Mastodon as it's "the right thing to do" and also because I actually personally enjoy using it! But from a business perspective it's pointless. I have 37 followers on Mastodon, 5800 on Facebook, 881 on Insta (which I barely even use!) and 2100 on YouTube. I'd love to support Peertube, but the audience is so small that it just doesn't get the videos seen. Allowing some monetisation might encourage more creators and a virtuous circle

@deadsuperhero What destroyed or made worse youtube, facebook, twitter and the like? They became stores instead of networks. When you start to sell and market your network then the incentive is on that more and more, and less to create a healthy and useful network.

If our Peertube instance relied on selling stuff and we had to pay for the server via this mean, I will feel more and more incentivized to add ads about what we sell on our homepage, maybe in video ads, etc.. Just like youtube. Can't help it.

Same with the creators: same incentive to make videos for views because views allows them to make money.

Trade ruins pretty much everything. Even made a book about that tromsite.com/trombooks/#flipbo… with tons of examples.

I think creating another Youtube or Facebook should not be the point of the fediverse. What would their purpose be then? Right now they are trying something completely new: to provide a clean and sane place for people to create stuff, connect with others, etc. Unlike the marketplaces of youtube, facebook and the like.

So, if you are to understand what ruins these platforms like youtube and the like (namely trade) then you would not propose such a solution.

And I do understand that the "creators" need some support, I do too, but it is crucial how they get that support and how it influences them.

My 2c.

@deadsuperhero

In particular, we need some framework that can replace Facebook business pages. These replace business web pages in much of the world, especially for small businesses.

They also need to be able to connect with assorted payment systems, of course.

@deadsuperhero Federated storefronts maybe? Clustered together in federated "malls" of shops that will vouch for each other? Something like that?

@deadsuperhero

Maybe in Europe Union we will have a digital euro within a couple of years.
That would allow free api with no commission, for a digital currency with legal tender.

@deadsuperhero
I'm sympathetic to that proposal but I think it could go further. Again, not "big capitalism" but I think there's room for other commerce, such as the commerce of ideas and skills. If there were:
* 'guilds' for different practices.
* 'reputations' for different levels of expertise, experience & quality.
* 'commonrooms' to make sharing skills or knowledge easier and allow persistence
* 'libraries' of tutorials
* 'badges' to introduce a consistent quality & currency of skill levels & recognized qualifications.
* 'markets', places where people go to buy goods but not underpinned by any profiling, algorithms, or advert driven push capitalism.

@deadsuperhero absolutely, 100%. @manyfold is on that list too.

@deadsuperhero I don't think you should be flamed for this at all. Any Fedi instance could easily benefit with a payment solution simply for server costs - an integrated solution is much better than handling that externally, and you could grant things like, a little "support" badge on someone's profile, as an example, a shoutout on their About page, things like that.

I'd rather pay my instance admin directly through here instead of Ko-Fi, which is the case right now.

@deadsuperhero I have bought things from people on the fediverse and commissioned things from several other people on the fediverse to keep making more stuff. I see people on the fediverse selling stuff every day.

I'm not sure you've really made the case for why you think these things need to happen on-platform, putting stuff like "dealing with taxes," "dealing with fraud" and "dealing with copyright violation" etc on the plates of platform administrators who already have too much to do.

It doesn't really seem like you've thought through what adding revenue and commerce to these platforms really entails.

To me it sounds like you're really making two arguments simultaneously: the first is that we need to financially incentivise people to join the fediverse and perform here, and the second is that people need to be able to support each other by buying and selling and commissioning.

Only the first of those arguments requires monetization of the platform, so it kinda seems like you're lumping those other things in to kind of support your main argument. (That we need to "monetize" so that we can attract TikTok and YouTube stars, who expect to be paid.)

Is it really that important to entice people who don't want to publish here to do so?

@deadsuperhero@social.wedistribute.org
Open Bazaar was amazing before it died. Too bad the platform never took off for more legitimate purposes. Fedi would be a magical place if somehow we could incorporate Open Bazaar into it.

It is, after all, what Elon Musk is trying to build with X.

@deadsuperhero Totally agree! "Commerce" - not corporate capitalism.

@neil @deadsuperhero something that could do both would be amazing.

@neil Yeah, I 100% agree. The relationship between payment processors and sex work / adult content is absolutely bizarre to me.