@dansup ... The idea makes sense, if you can keep the price low.

@dansup I'd rather go with some other form of supporter badges as there is already the verification mechanism from Mastodon in the fediverse and that could be confusing

@dansup Y?

@dansup Could the price maybe scale with the user's geographic location and account type? (Large US business vs freelance photographer from a small country in Eastern Europe?)

Otherwise this seems fair, definitely want the fediverse to explore ways to stay sustainable.

@dansup I'd say if the purpose of verification is trust, it should not be a paid feature. Otherwise it's only possible for people/orgs with enough money.

I can imagine other forms of monetization. More branding/customization features for instance. Or a special "I donated" badge. A "donaters" page where your name is listed. Things like that?

@dansup I'm not against it, but if pixelfed should also get other types of verification, like the one mastodon uses, it might get confusing.

@dansup you can have supporters and give them an indication but for Pete’s sake don’t touch the blue check symbol with a fifty foot pole.

@dansup no. I don't think paying is a way of being "verified". Make merchandise, custom emojis, custom themes for the app or put in advantage donations in the apps.

A thing that don't have software in Fediverse is account analytics. Make that available for Pixelfed users with a small paid subscription for example.

@dansup can you maybe first share what you want to fund? And where the underlying problems are you want to get financed? Since I have not enough context to actually give good advice.

@dansup I'd love if verification on the fediverse was based on domain names (though not everyone will host their own instance) but as long as there's a good verification process I wouldn't mind this.
Also the list could be made decentralized anyway, though then that'd kinda go against the goal of the project being funded.

@dansup without real vetting (and do you really want to be the arbiter of hard identity verification?) all you can really say for sure is you’ve verified this user paid you money, which is not nothing, but it’s closer to a project supporter badge than verification

@dansup will it be similar to instagram's verification mark that are given only to a certain set of publicly identifiable people? if yes, how similar your criteria will be for people who are eligible for the verification mark?

@dansup not against it.

@dansup Combining identity verification and paid project support doesn’t have a great history in social media.

I’d think about the details and your commitment to users (and your legal liability) before mixing the two.

Also, it would give a financial disincentive to doing identity verification via any other path, including ones that are more scalable, more accurate and more acceptable to users.

@dansup I believe a better option would be premium hosting. Basically allow users of #Pixelfed to host content under their own domain, & you could throw in the checkmark as a bonus. 😉

Similar to how @matt provides premium hosting to #WriteFreely via Write.as & @photomatt provides premium #WordPress hosting via WP.com (are there any other examples‽).

It would benefit the community plus encourage other hosts to take a second look at Pixelfed.

@dansup I’d prefer to have the option of a general subscription, where one option is being able to have some kind of symbol denoting I was a paid user. Let’s not conflate payment with “verification”, and be explicit about what it entails for content visibility or promotion.

@dansup what about feature bountys ?

@dansup Calling it a verification program heavily undermines what you're actually trying to do, which is gather financial support for this project. Branding it instead as a supporter program will definitely increase the reach of the initiative as well as find more willing participants. Twitter completely devaluing what verification used to mean has left a bad taste in everyone's mouth and it'd be better to steer clear of it.

@dansup looking at your profile I already see verification checkmarks for your pixelfed, GitHub, and website links. Adding a way to vary that checkmark to indicate paid support, or just to customize and give hosts the option to charge a fee for customization, could be a nice way for supporters to make that public that would be hard to fake

@dansup maybe go with an individual suppprters wall? "Paid verification" almost always leads to grifts & scams, so you'd need to pair it with identity verification or fancy reputational damages.

(I'm slowly actually working on age & identity verification for those that want it)

@dansup

Some work in Europe via

https://ich.taler.net/pub/open-calls-helpdesk GNU Taler electronic payment system

From the Federated Alternative to "Patreon":

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/federated-alternative-to-patreon/4018

Money doesn't make trust. Actions make trust. Trust verification checkmarks should be based on actions, not a possible troll paying small money for big nuisance. Money and trust are separate entities.

Maybe use some symbol other than a blue checkmark? That just has too many negative associations at this point.

@dansup

@dansup @anildash I like Signal’s method of showing a badge for supporters but not calling it “verification.” The latter implies or implied, at least, some process to confirm a person is who they say they are.

@dansup if you provide a “verification” of some sort, what liability could it create for you/PixelFed?

I’m happily a monthly supporter right now, and I’m neutral on some sort of identity marking THAT, specifically, but “verification” implies something you have to be able to back, that the user is who they say they are, that they are trusted somehow, or have shared some key info. There are legal and privacy implications, and a management workflow needed, at the least.

@dansup NO

@dansup I would like not the "verification" but just the ability to get the visual "App Support Badge" next to your profile. And it must be available and possible to pay through other clients if their devs want to implement the feature and not only main Pixelfed client

@dansup I think it makes more sense to offer more capabilities to paid users (like, more server space, higher image quality, etc) than a "verified" account, but that's my opinion only.

@dansup How would it work? Do you mean a hard coded list of project paid donors?

@dansup True verification is expensive, so I'm concerned this would be a loss-making product. (Unless you restrict it to locations where you can use an existing identity verification system.)

@dansup depends on what you want pixelfed to be.

You could do federated identity verification. Check marks could be issued by admins but not cross server lines unless explicitly allowed by other servers.

I trust people on my instance more than random servers. But I'd trust my admin to tell me if admins of other instances are similarly trustworthy.

@dansup no, verification is a safety and trust feature that
1. Already has a good implementation on Mastodon
2. Should not be put behind a paywall

If you're looking into monetization features, I suggest you explore the "cosmetic" route.
I'd happily pay for an extra badge on my profile like a heart or rocket emoji (@signalapp) or other kind of avatar decoration (Discord).

@dansup I do not like the idea of a verification/blue checkmark, but instead a badge on the user's profile

that can be something like supporter, long term supporter, contributor, etc... I mean, it opens the idea to few levels of badgers, something almost like achievements

just an idea, of course

@dansup I would also go with a supporters badge like @signalapp and do appreciate website verification like Mastodon.

@dansup how would you implement such a verification process? Most of the time I would assume it to be a GDPR nightmare. Maybe something like a supporter badge?

Because I link my pixelfed account from my main account here on mastodon and this verifies via my website so verification ist't something that is interesting for me.

@dansup I’m not a fan of this for three reasons:
Being centralised goes against the very nature of the fediverse and leaves it open to bad actors.
There’s already a successful verification system as used by Mastodon. At the very least it will cause confusion.
These paid verification systems don’t really verify you only show that you’ve paid.

@dansup
I think a custom supporter badge that is specific to Pixelfed would be a great way to support the system.
But a blue check or anything else would feel really "bad". Twitter is a cesspool, Pixelfed is happiness, work on that custom branding.
You could do the same for the other apps, make each one custom to the platform (loops, sup, etc).

@dansup As a business model, it sounds like a good approach! As a user, built in domain verification tools already tell me that a user is really who they say. So rather than a "verification" badge, you might consider calling it a "supporter" badge or something like that. Meta is doing something similar.

@dansup

Better that than VC #Enshittification.

Or even have storage quotas and/or require unpaid accounts to have disappearing posts.

I'd much rather pay for the service, then see it go rogue against the community's interests and welfare.

@dansup

I am all for ethical monetization to support the long term viability of the project. The trick is to do it with methods that match the values of the project. Something that centralizes and de-anonymizes users is against the values of decentralization and privacy.

I suggest instead that you approach hosting companies to do deals where you refer people to them for a recurring commission thereafter, and they provide managed, quality, pre-set up Pixelfed packages.

@dansup i was thinking about this, and maybe verification and payments should be kept separate.

But, would be great to have an optional subscription module, helping support both developers and hosters.

Something like:

- Free 1Gb Storage
- Subscription giving more storage (helps supporting a server)
- Some percentage of that also goes to developer
- Optional cool badge for paying users (just like Signal does, it's still a cool thing showing support, but not "verification")