cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/27733087

Social networking startup and X competitor Bluesky is working on subscriptions. The company first announced plans to develop a new revenue stream based on the subscription model when detailing its $15 million Series A back in October. Now, mockups teasing the upcoming Bluesky subscription, along with a list of possible features, have been published to Bluesky’s GitHub.

  • brie@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    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.

    • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
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      20 hours ago

      Mastodon users don’t wanna be searchable

      Debatable. People don’t want their private account searchable. Creators and news account want their account and their post to be discoverable.

      The subscription model rarely works.

      It’s not that the subscription model doesn’t work. It’s the investor that demands things to grow even more all the time. There are plenty of service that simply deliver good stuff without investor demand and ended being sustainable for years.

      Fedi becomes more accepting of ads

      At least, some non-Western fediverse instance runs ads. Notably the second biggest instance in fediverse, Misskey.io. Their ads are community ads, like promoting indie games, vtuber, comic books, IRL gallery event, etc. They also did subscription providing additional cosmetics like Discord. Everyone’s happy.

      • brie@programming.dev
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        20 hours ago

        As it appears to me Mastodon is public like Twitter. I didn’t know about private instances. Why use this format when there’s chat rooms?

        What subscriptions do you have?

        Thanks, I’ll take a look at misskey.

        • nasi_goreng@lemmy.zip
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          9 hours ago

          The notion that Mastodon (and/or) Twitter as public conversation is not universal.

          There’s a lot of people, especially in other language that use the social media as microblog or casual coversation. I’m Indonesian, and a lot of people here using Twitter as “anon” account for random rambling (basically microblog) without even interacting with anyone (except IRL friend).

          Even Mastodon (and other fedi software) has feature for followers only post or quiet posting (cannot be viewed in live feed, or discovery).

          • brie@programming.dev
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            7 hours ago

            Thanks for explaining. I use group chats for IRL friends. It’s strange that some prefer mastodon because of the twitter format. I suppose it’s like private Facebook groups.

            I like the sharp distinction between private stuff and searchable stuff. So it’s good to have them as IM vs forum formats.

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      The subscription model rarely works

      when the objective is profiteering and endless growth

      I have an unpopular opinion that ads are still the best way to pay for servers and staff

      I think that’s acceptable if it’s not based on datamining and profiling and personalization, but on context, and if ads are honest and not too attention grabbing. yeah advertise your product/service, with its benefits, and do not try to persuade people into paying for garbage

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      The subscription model rarely works

      when the objective is profiteering and endless growth

      I have an unpopular opinion that ads are still the best way to pay for servers and staff

      I think that’s acceptable if it’s not based on datamining and profiling and personalization, but on context, and if ads are honest and not too attention grabbing. yeah advertise your product/service, with its benefits, and do not try to persuade people into paying for garbage

      • brie@programming.dev
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        1 day ago

        Is making a profit = profiteering? I agree with endless growth. I hate the big data model that assumes large numbers of users, huge churn, low success rate.

        The ads I had in mind would be topic-based. If you’re on a supplement sub, you see suggestions for a vendor. If you’re on a web dev sub, you see VPS vendors. Nothing crass like Betterhelp or Masterworks.

        • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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          22 hours ago

          Is making a profit = profiteering?

          no, what I wanted to mean is wanting to make lots of money just for the sake of it, or to increase value

          The ads I had in mind would be topic-based. If you’re on a supplement sub, you see suggestions for a vendor. If you’re on a web dev sub, you see VPS vendors.

          yeah, exactly, that’s not so bad