pay for digital social spaces
exploring a future of digital social spaces / networks where users pay
pay for digital social spaces
Of course, money is a transformative incentive. Donating our time and labor for free is a privilege. I’ve watched stipends, contract agreements, or permanent staff roles enable incredible volunteers to go way beyond what they could do without compensation. I also believe expectations themselves require expansion and redefinition outside of the boun... See more
Elise Granata • On Having Expectations – Even When Doing Things for Free
It's almost like the equivalent of going to mom and pop shops, not relying on these bigger anomalies to dictate our spending habits and our viewing habits and our work habits. And I think that there's a future in this world where Patreons and OnlyFans and Substacks and all these things, we're going to start supporting each other
Rachel Nguyen
Centralised moderation isn't the only option that doesn't work. We also need to eliminate any option that doesn't have a credible mean of doing the work — and it's a lot of work, meaning that either someone needs to get paid or you need a lot of volunteers. And punting it to the users can never work.
It may be more likely to be pay-to-play. Design takes time and effort. Content creation takes time and effort. Everything that goes into a shiny digital footprint – website design, hosting, platform service subscriptions – costs money. Compare this to a random book club meet-up advertised through a single flyer made by hand and stapled to a few tel... See more
Elise Granata • What We Lose When Optimizing Community
an argument against “pay to play”
🧠 The puzzle of vanishing member dues - Part 2
Saumya Gupta • Build IRL Newsletter #19
from BuildIRL team; exploring challenges builders have w/ “dues”
I wish more media / subscription products didn’t have auto-renew as an unchangeable default.
Any time I see that - even if it says “cancel at any time” - it deters me from taking action in that moment because I’m worried about forgetting to cancel it later, and then getting charged $19.99 or whatever.
A better approach would be: we’ll charge you $10
... See moreSometimes it can feel like the online spaces you spend time in are working against you, pushing you toward things that their owners value instead of what you value—and harnessing your energy to fuel the very things you hate. Like me, you probably know the feeling of spending too much time gorging on digital junk food, wasting precious moments of yo... See more
Chris Best • An Algorithm for Quality
The mistake of the 1.0 platforms was to optimize for engagement—likes, clicks, and shares. This was a successful short-term growth strategy, but at the long-term cost of sustainability. For engagement includes not only joy but rage, not only mirth but sadness. Incentivizing these things creates hellishness, driving people to disengage, to become di... See more