this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Lemmy

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Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to [email protected].

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Hey Fediverse,

I’ve been thinking about how we can improve lemmy and make it even more dynamic and supportive. Here’s an idea I believe could really make a difference: a paid awards and donations feature. Other fediverse platforms such as Peertube already support this thanks to plugins such as: https://github.com/dhk2/peertube-plugin-lightning

What’s the Big Idea?

Imagine being able to give a little back to those posts or comments that really made you think, laugh, or feel connected. Here’s how it could work:

  • You come across a great post or comment.
  • You give it an award, with a small donation attached.
  • This donation gets split four ways: 30% to the poster, 30% to their instance admin, 30% the community’s moderators and 10% to the lemmy developers.

Why split it this way? Because it’s not just about rewarding great content. It’s also about supporting the people who keep our spaces running and vibrant.

Why the Lightning Network?

  • It’s quick and cheap, perfect for small transactions.
  • It’s decentralized and it’s becoming one of the best ways to support creators online (for example it’s becoming the de-facto standard for podcast monetization)

Why This Matters

  • a direct way to support and encourage each other.
  • Helps keep our communities and their admins going strong.
  • It’s a small change, but it could really deepen our connections here.
  • it gives a middle finger to Reddit, and we all want that :P

Wrapping Up

I really believe this could make Lemmy a more rewarding place for everyone. Let’s discuss and see if we can make this happen together!

Looking forward to hearing what you all think.

EDIT: it seems that most of the comments are focusing on the crypto aspect. I’m open to non crypto alternatives

top 15 comments
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I would much rather support my instance directly, and I wouldn’t touch crypto with a 10ft pole

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I get your trepidation about crypto in particular, and I agree for the most part when it comes to the majority of crypto, but there are a few reasons why I think the bitcoin lightning network would work here:

  • Micropayments are not really that easy to do with traditional payment technologies
  • Traditional payment technologies are complex to integrate with for decentralized systems
  • Unlike most crypto, bitcoin at the very least isn’t a scam
  • There is precedent in both the fediverse and the internet at large; peertube supports this and the podcasting 2.0 movement supports this
[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

You are really talented at hitting all the cryptobro notes while making sure to avoid all the cryptobro language, but we all have a lot of experience dealing with this capitalist cancer and it simply isn't going to work on a platform specifically created to be anticapitalist.

Consider taking your marketing fart-huffing to out of touch money-hungry CEOs, they'll be far more receptive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I really don’t want to turn this into a crypto discussion, if you think there are better alternatives I’m open to hearing about them; I’m mostly interested in rewarding people for their content and paying for instance admins and lemmy developers. You’d be surprised how much you and I probably agree on regarding crypto

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I have been banned from so many places for my unyielding and extremely passionate anti-crypto stance, you can fuck right off with that "we have more in common" shit. I for one don't find young people to be attractive, nor do I see everything as a moneymaking opportunity.

Lemmy is an anticapitalist platform, and you're too blinded by your own avarice to see that. Go ahead and report me for being "disrespectful" the admins are going to take one look at your instance name and immediately add it to the defederation list because you are the bad guy.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nope. No highlighting karma, and especially not karma actually worth something. That just asks for people who only care to game the system to start flooding the network. Your noise to signal ratio will plummet. And how will you handle it per instance? What's to stop someone from spinning up an instance of bots and auto voting on all of their stuff?

A million times no.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

That just asks for people who only care to game the system to start flooding the network

How so?

And how will you handle it per instance? What’s to stop someone from spinning up an instance of bots and auto voting on all of their stuff?

What reason would there be to do that that doesn’t already exist today?

Perhaps there is a little misunderstanding going on about what this proposal is about. Are you aware of Reddit’s feature where you can award certain comments with a small award that shows up as visual flare? I’m proposing the same feature, but in a more decentralized and user centric manner.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Awards encourage farming for them. It's human nature. And you attached actual money to them(the donations). So it has real value.

I don't care how you distribute it. It's a bad idea. It's a terrible feature of reddit that should have never existed in the first place. If Lemmy added this, I'd leave in a heartbeat.

Oh, and you asked for opinions, and then downvoted me for giving mine. Really bringing that reddit vibe over, huh?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

Awards encourage farming for them. It’s human nature. And you attached actual money to them(the donations). So it has real value.

I can see your point, but I think that the benefits outweigh the negatives and that we should somehow incentivize well thought out content, and in general I believe that micro donations should become more common on the internet. This is the best way in my opinion to encourage more people to use (and work on) decentralized systems. I have been a big proponent of donations for good content and good software for at least a decade

Oh, and you asked for opinions, and then downvoted me for giving mine. Really bringing that reddit vibe over, huh?

I did not downvote you, but in general I use upvotes and downvotes to show agreement or disagreement, it’s never personal

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If we have to use crypto (which I don't really see a reason for to be perfectly honest), then I'd much rather seean privacy coin like Monero being used.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I can see your point but don’t you think that monero adds friction? you want something quick and easy that users don’t have to think about

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

How about we not monetize human interaction here too!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why can’t we contribute just to have fun, why should there be some kind of an award? Besides, that’s just like the awards on Reddit and we know how well those work. The same one-liner under every post, flooded with awards.

This system just encourages farming and creates a hive mind mentality. Lemmy is great the way it is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That’s fair, I mostly came up with the idea because I saw a comment mentioning awards like in Reddit and I’m a huge proponent of paying for FOSS applications and for content online, so that’s why I opened this up for discussion

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Take your crypto scheme and shove it back where it came from.