Monetization is often a struggle for big open-source projects, donations are nice but I think they often fall short.

Something to consider is to add Rewards people get if they donate, which they can then hand out to posts or comments that they like. I feel this could add a lot to PieFed and is a great feature to have.

The potential extra income from people buying rewards could be used for better servers, more storage, to cover dev costs etc.

I have no clue how Federation would work around this it’s probably complex. Thoughts?

Edit: We could have a option to hide badges for those that don’t want this feature. It’s purely cosmetic

    • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
      12·
      13 days ago

      Yeah, I have to say I’m also critical of this. One side is the gamification aspect, which I don’t really think is beneficial to healthy discussion. The other is the possibility for abuse; these awards give trolls a superpower by tagging other people’s posts with highly inappropriate “awards” that could be very badly received.

      I see the value of monetization, but maybe something as simple as an optional “PieFed donor” flair on user profiles of people who send monthly contributions could achieve some of this benefit without the possibility for abuse.