Technology

While a lot of us hate ads and subscriptions, I have the unpopular opinion that they are generally still viable considering the state of how we use the internet today.

The thing is, I think that if there are ads, there should be the ability to pay to remove them, and if there is a subscription, there should be an ad-based tier as an alternative.

Let your users choose, respect their preference for funding model, and allow them to choose if they want to support a given monetization policy.

Of course, seeing as how they raised $15m from VCs, I doubt this will be nothing but what will inevitably devolve into a pay-for-reach scheme similar to Twitter Blue (or, sorry "X Premium") that just leads to those with wealth getting more engagement, and a louder voice.

Would love to hear about Mastodon in the news (or by anyone with a following) for once instead of Bluesky

I think the Xitter or even Discord model is poisonous for a community. It essentially creates a caste system where equal exchange can’t happen. In part because it attracts a very special kind of user base that creates a special kind of culture.

The Twitter format is crap. It's bad for search (Mastodon users don't wanna be searchable). There is a huge recency bias: observed in echo waves of circlejerk memes (CEO stuff being the most recent one). It limits discussion depth compared to the reddit format. Here on lemmy people often read all comments, and I like it even if mine get downvoted :)

The subscription model rarely works. Netflix now shows ads, Twitter is still in the red. The donation/self-hosted model is even less successful. I have an unpopular opinion that ads are still the best way to pay for servers and staff. Reddit users hated ads, and that led to them turning into a data repo for Gemini.

I hope Fedi becomes more accepting of ads, but it's a tall order given that it's still mostly pinkos and nerds.

How does that even work for those hosting their own? Do I just give myself Bluesky+? Because all those features I already have by virtue of hosting my own data.

People keep acting like hosting this shit and developing it is free. Its not. Donate to your instance and the development of the back end and all the opensource software you use. Bluesky has 20 million people using it it's no surorise they are looking for a profit model that won't scare the base off. I would rather it be subs instead of endless ads and algorithm tweaks.

$8/72 per month/year seems too high for most people.

Had Twitter added a paid tier early on as it scaled up - when it was still largely the only short form blogging platform - we could potentially have avoided...so much shit we now live in. Twitter was never profitable, so it just kept adding ads until that wasn't sustainable. And then dipshit bought it and really turned it into the nazi place.

Twitter always had problems, but I think we can generally agree it wasn't a pretty good service for lots of things. Breaking news, sports, even science, etc. It had actual (not amazing, but existing) moderation. There's maybe a world out there where a Twitter that isn't owned by some idiot doesn't help influence an election that we now have to deal with for decades to come.

That's all wishful thinking, of course, and Twitter is not THE REASON the U.S. is trash. But there was a path where Twitter didn't turn into just Truth Social 2.0.

Adding a paid tier to Bluesky might sound like "enshitification," but if it simply keeps the company afloat then there's potentially less chance of it becoming Twitter 2.0, so to speak. Otherwise, there's probably a straight path to ads then creditors calling in debts then selling then elon just buys it, too.

Gee whiz wow who could have possibly seen this coming.

But people have been assuring me that it is a federated protocol, so I guess I'll just join another instance. I'm sure there is a list somewhere.... It's coming... Any day now...

Lmao and all these idiots will gladly pay it because it's a slick corporate product, and they'll turn CryptoQueen Jay Graber into another fucking billionaire leech on our fucking system.

Great job everyone, meanwhile Mastodon still exists and you won't be contributing to building another billionaire crytpo freak to control our country's politics by using it. Also, all Mastodon features will continue to be free to everyone.

Jay Graber literally got her start in tech working on Zcash, a privacy-focused crypto-currency. She was happy to make a deal with Blockchain Capital, a Venture Capital firm made up entirely of cryptobros and 'effective altruism' freaks.

But I mean, this is America, where we say "Fuck community projects!" the corporations I hate and bitch about all the time pamper me like a baby and I must have that pampering!

"Corporations rob us of our dignity and independence."

Just playing devil's advocate here, but they have to make money somehow, right? It's either this or advertisements. And I fucking hate advertisements. I say the only way they could truly drop the ball is if they opt for both subscriptions and advertisements. The only other option is donations. And I honestly can't see that as a viable strategy for something like Bluesky.

they should fire aaron rodericks, ban singal, and listen to trans people first if they want our money

I am happy to pay for a service I’m using and getting value from if the price is fair, and if they can find a model where it’s sustainable with some % paid and some still free so that it’s available to everyone, and do that without ads or data scraping or treating users as a commodity I think that’s as close as we’ll get to tech utopia.

The “users are the product” tech model needs to die. We will need to start paying for our stuff. But I think that will create a better internet.

They’re really speedrunning the enshittification, aren’t they?