Yes. It is great to hear that people want to financials to be fair and equal. That is extremely noble.
It is my opinion that someone still needs to step up, anonymously or not. The hard truth is Patreon, affiliate links, and donations are “lumpy” forms on income. As in, you bring in $500 one month, and you bring in $5 the next. It is just the way things like this operate.
I have reached out in private with some ideas. I like the idea of donations and patrons, but I don’t want server and bandwidth bills–which are generally fixed costs–to be impacted by the variable nature of donations.
I used to mod a board that had a “Kitty Fund” people would kick into so often to kill off the ads. It was a feature of the board. Not sure if discourse has any kind of built in funding option, but maybe we should research that. Could keep things simple.
After that, I like the Patreon solution.
Re: accounting - we are all kind of vapor people here so I think as long as figures are low, hell, take my money. What are we talking, the price of the occasional starbucks?
yeah, there are tons of models that can be used. it is really up to the founders on how they want to conduct their business. there are pros and cons to almost any structure.
Can I ask for a step in a different direction? Is it possible to rewrite Amazon links so that, instead of adding an affiliate code, the link went to the http://smile.amazon.com website instead?
I agree with @waetherman that donations will do as we kick this thing off.
As I wrote in the What IS This Place thread, I like the idea of divvying up the expenses in the form of a small subscription. Every other site on the web is barely surviving by inundating its audience with ads, affiliate links and native advertising. If we build the idea of slow growth and member subscription into the marrow of the site, then it will always be sustainable and ad-fee.
Concerning affiliates, I wouldn’t be opposed to having a single link that people could deliberately make their purchases through if they want to support the site.
I think it would be nice to leave room for the occasional, totally transparent, totally unobtrusive sponsored post. I’m thinking something like the “jumbotron” spots on maximumfun podcasts. You do run into pricing challenges, though, which could be uncomfortable, as any posts would likely be friends and friends of friends for quite a while…
I’d be willing to do a sustaining membership model like a lot of public radio stations have. At some point I’d like to know where we’re at on operating costs as traffic builds. Thank you, @LockeCJ for fronting the initial costs. I’m still waiting to see how this experiment develops, but a fiver each month won’t break the bank.
Anyway, I’m confident that will be the comparatively easy part. The biggest challenge is going to be getting consensus on moderators and trust level policies. For mods, I think some democratic election of those who’ve thrown their hat in the ring would be wise since we’re aiming for a more ground-up approach that the old BBS. Just my 2 cents. And to be clear, I’m not volunteering. But I’ll certainly help defray costs.
The problem with monthly subscriptions is when one has potential instability or fluctuations in one’s income; unless the sum of the donation is substantially low.
For instance, I could always be counted on to kick in two bucks a month consistently, as opposed to 10 or 20 bucks, which I wouldn’t be able to guarantee.
Ditto. Hopefully a few dozen regs putting in a couple bucks a month could cover hosting costs, at least for a while. If we get bigger, well I’m in the same position you are as to what I can pitch in.
Amazon links will work if you float reviews in a way that can catch on social networks. I know this, with appropriate disclosure, is the best way to generate zero-bullshit revenue for a new website right now.
Interesting. I always thought affiliate revenue was chump change. That was a conclusion I reached from the early days of the web, before social media though, and I can see how that might have changed with all this sharing that the kids are doing these days.
I am cautious about affiliate links, but not against them. I think bb reviews were often great, and honest, but sometimes it felt like they were driven by the affiliate link rather than having the link as a bonus. That commercialism is one of the reasons I’ve been less excited about bb recently (which is why, I assume, @redesignedchose the title for this thread). I think a community driven site, where everyone can contribute reviews, and choose to include (or not) an affiliate link to help the site, would fall less in to this trap, but who knows where this will be in a year. If it’s afffiliate links today, is it paid content tomorrow? Clickbaity titles and articles about Kadashians over Cardassians?
Ultimately this is really about how we are formed; is this going to be a for-profit site, which aims to maximize revenue regardless of expenses? Or is this going to be a nonprofit site that seeks (and is legally obligated) only to raise only the money necessary to keep the server humming? The third option is a hybrid, for profit company that holds a social mission over profit; a so-called benefit corporation or LC3.
I’m leaning toward the latter. A for-profit company might just end up being driven by greed to pursue revenue over community. A nonprofit is generally a lot more work to create and manage, administratively speaking, and is hamstrung in many ways. A benefit corporation reflects the community created ethos of this site, but still allows flexibility in terms of business models, investment and shareholders.
