4 ms·

> I respond to individuals or small groups saying "hey this stuff you like to read takes time to write, and for me to do this for a living and continue to creat

> I respond to individuals or small groups saying "hey this stuff you like to read takes time to write, and for me to do this for a living and continue to create stuff, it would be really nice if you contributed a small amount of money" I do this. I served 500k visitors this month. 20 of them contributed. I don't know what's causing this, but I imagine that the unfortunate reality is that substack's model is more effective.

BoiledCabbage 3y ago
I've never been in this space, but from everything I've read this is fundamentally it. It seems like so many think "just ask for people to contribute and that will work" - but fundamentally people don't. There are cost to do that work and people don't pay. And the one person chimes in and says "hey I contribute and support x and y and z things and people can and should do it". But "should" doesn't pay the bills. Either charge people, make money off adds or you nine times out of 9 get next to nothing for the work you've put in. "maybe if payment were easier", "maybe if paying small amounts scaled", "maybe if this xyz tech were more robust" - and people love to respond with this. But it doesn't work now, and it hasn't worked in 30+ years of the web and there is no reason to think it will start working any time soon. Can it? Yes. But until then, people who want to be compensated for their hard work have two options and they use them.
- internetter 3y ago
  Here are my truths: 1. I never thought about any of this until recently 2. Even without donations, writing has provided some cool experiences 3. And yet, thinking about it, I would love to make more off my writing 4. I don't want to sacrifice the quality of my writing for my income. Placing ads (and hell, even donation links, but especially ads) creates a perverse incentive to create more content than I want to, and to make it ugly to rank high in Google. Above all else, I want to keep my writing human, even if it means I don't make a dollar. So, with all this in mind (and to provide "advice" for others looking at this) 1. I don't want to force people to subscribe to a newsletter. I might add a newsletter, because I've been told that building trust takes time, but that's low on my priority list. 2. I don't want to add google ads or whatever. 3. I've recently (today) added Ko-fi in addition to liberapay. I thought that people who actually wanted to give me money would be willing to use paypal through a platform they haven't used before, but I'm not sure this is the case. Right now, only 1% of people who have clicked that donate link have actually donated 4. The plea is much more effective than a simple link in getting people to click 5. Corporate sponsorships are a possibility imo, but I haven't yet recieved one that didn't involve me selling out my readers somehow. Ultimately, I think the harsh reality is that projects must place themselves on a spectrum of "make fuck tons of money" and "make fuck tons of people happy"
  - orwin 3y ago
    The more payment service you have, the more likely it is random people will pay. I used to not really pay for content, until an author blew me away, so I set up a patreon account, just for him. Three months later, I'm now subscribed to 11 people for roughly 100€ a month (which is the ballpark of what I want to spend for internet entertainment anyway). Once my account was set up and I knew how to use it, the friction disappeared, and I realized I was more lazy than cheap.
    - internetter 3y ago
      Something else I'm wondering is if a /donate route with outlinks is too much friction? I can't imagine it would be? Just because frankly my biggest hesitation with diversifying is I want to maintain minimalism and not have links to 10 different platforms.
nicbou 3y ago
In my experience, roughly 1 in 10,000 visitors donates. Donations are 0.5 to 1% of my income. They would not cover my groceries bill. This is for a website that provides undeniable value and has a ton of happy, grateful users. People swear by it, call it their bible. They still won't donate.
- internetter 3y ago
  I really wish coil did well. I thought interledger was incredibly stupid, but if we normalized a subscription for the web at say, $20, and divided it between every youtube channel and independent website and hell what if it was just part of the internet bill. Obviously we're well within fantasy land now, but I think coil would've been cool.

BoiledCabbage 3y ago

I've never been in this space, but from everything I've read this is fundamentally it. It seems like so many think "just ask for people to contribute and that will work" - but fundamentally people don't. There are cost to do that work and people don't pay. And the one person chimes in and says "hey I contribute and support x and y and z things and people can and should do it". But "should" doesn't pay the bills. Either charge people, make money off adds or you nine times out of 9 get next to nothing for the work you've put in. "maybe if payment were easier", "maybe if paying small amounts scaled", "maybe if this xyz tech were more robust" - and people love to respond with this. But it doesn't work now, and it hasn't worked in 30+ years of the web and there is no reason to think it will start working any time soon. Can it? Yes. But until then, people who want to be compensated for their hard work have two options and they use them.

internetter 3y ago
Here are my truths: 1. I never thought about any of this until recently 2. Even without donations, writing has provided some cool experiences 3. And yet, thinking about it, I would love to make more off my writing 4. I don't want to sacrifice the quality of my writing for my income. Placing ads (and hell, even donation links, but especially ads) creates a perverse incentive to create more content than I want to, and to make it ugly to rank high in Google. Above all else, I want to keep my writing human, even if it means I don't make a dollar. So, with all this in mind (and to provide "advice" for others looking at this) 1. I don't want to force people to subscribe to a newsletter. I might add a newsletter, because I've been told that building trust takes time, but that's low on my priority list. 2. I don't want to add google ads or whatever. 3. I've recently (today) added Ko-fi in addition to liberapay. I thought that people who actually wanted to give me money would be willing to use paypal through a platform they haven't used before, but I'm not sure this is the case. Right now, only 1% of people who have clicked that donate link have actually donated 4. The plea is much more effective than a simple link in getting people to click 5. Corporate sponsorships are a possibility imo, but I haven't yet recieved one that didn't involve me selling out my readers somehow. Ultimately, I think the harsh reality is that projects must place themselves on a spectrum of "make fuck tons of money" and "make fuck tons of people happy"
- orwin 3y ago
  The more payment service you have, the more likely it is random people will pay. I used to not really pay for content, until an author blew me away, so I set up a patreon account, just for him. Three months later, I'm now subscribed to 11 people for roughly 100€ a month (which is the ballpark of what I want to spend for internet entertainment anyway). Once my account was set up and I knew how to use it, the friction disappeared, and I realized I was more lazy than cheap.
  - internetter 3y ago
    Something else I'm wondering is if a /donate route with outlinks is too much friction? I can't imagine it would be? Just because frankly my biggest hesitation with diversifying is I want to maintain minimalism and not have links to 10 different platforms.

nicbou 3y ago

In my experience, roughly 1 in 10,000 visitors donates. Donations are 0.5 to 1% of my income. They would not cover my groceries bill. This is for a website that provides undeniable value and has a ton of happy, grateful users. People swear by it, call it their bible. They still won't donate.

internetter 3y ago
I really wish coil did well. I thought interledger was incredibly stupid, but if we normalized a subscription for the web at say, $20, and divided it between every youtube channel and independent website and hell what if it was just part of the internet bill. Obviously we're well within fantasy land now, but I think coil would've been cool.