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The dilema of charging the users and a solution by integrating blockchain to fediverse (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 hours ago* (last edited 22 minutes ago) by baliuzeger@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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I'm planing hosting an instance, and I think that in the end I'll have to let the users pay for subscription. But just when I was imagining how I should design the subscription, I found there's a dilemma arose from the nature of fediverse:

(assume that people really like my instance for some reason)

  1. If I charge my users, they may simply register on another instance and keep interacting with my instance to avoid paying the fees.
  2. I can limit activities of the users who don't register on my instance to force them to subscribe my instance, but such action is obviously destructive to the fediverse.

I think this is not only my own problem. I think every instances with some scale faces the issue of costs, and relying on donation forever may not be a long term solution. So here's the question: how to let the owners of the instances get paid without violating the values of fediverse, i.e. decentralization and federation? Moreover, the solution should let the instances with higher popularity earn more money, so that'll encourage people to host high-quality instances. And I just figured out a (possibly very rough) solution by integrating blockchain to fediverse.

First, there will be a blockchain. There will be these cryptocurrencies:

  1. the universal currency, let's say "fedicoin". Fedicoin can be traded on trading platforms like normal cryptocurrencies.
  2. the currency of every single instance, e.g. InstanceA coin for InstanceA, InstanceB coin for InstanceB. The instance-specific coins are only used for federation between instances.

and the blockchain holds these data:

  1. how many fedicoins and instance-specific coins each instances owns.
  2. how many fedicoins each non-instance users owns, if any. I guess it would be better that only the instances can own instance-specific coins.

For operating the blockchain, there should be nodes to hold the data and process the transactions. The nodes can be either served by the instances or the non-instance machines. The nodes earn fedicoins.

When instances are federating with each other, every "demand" requires paying some instance-specific coins. The price of each type of demand will be predefined in the federation APIs. For example, if a user on InstanceB want to post on InstanceA, then InstanceB have to pay 10 lemmy.world coin to lemmy.world, and vise versa.

To earn instance-specific coins to pay for the demands, all the instances will "trade" automatically with other instances, and the "exchange rate" will be determined by some algorithm, possibly based on the amount of demands between each two instances. For example, if on average the demand from InstanceB to lemmy.world is 5 times more than the demand from lemmy.world to InstanceB, than in a trade, InstanceB may get 1000 lemmy.world coin, while lemmy.world may get 5000 InstanceB coin.

There will be an upper limit for every instance to own other instances' coins. For example, when lemmy.world owns 100,500 InstanceB coins, which exceeds the limit 100,000, then lemmy.world will refuse to trade with InstanceB by InstanceB coins. Under such condition, InstanceB have to trade with lemmy.world by the fedicoin. The owners of InstanceB will have to purchase fedicoin to let InstanceB trade with lemmy.world to maintain the fedaration.

Currently I think that the exchange rate between fedicoin and an instance-specific coin should be controlled by the owners of each instance, because each instance may have different costs for machines and moderation.

Finally, (hopefully) we'll have a fediverse like this:

  1. The highly-demanded instances earn fedicoins, which can be exchanged to real-world currencies. Such mechanism also encourages hosting high-quality instances and more open federation.
  2. The instances can simply charging their users normally by real-world currencies, so the users don't have to bother about cryptocurrencies.

Other side notes: Defining the prices of the demands may be tricky? For example, if my understanding is correct, there's no actual action like "read" when instances are communicating with APIs.

For the automatic trades between instances, of course there should be some controllable configuration, e.g. "don't buy coins over some price from some instances".

I'm just interested in the fediverse, and I hope my ideas can be helpful for its development. Any comments or crossposting are welcome and thank you for your reading.

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[-] demesisx@infosec.pub 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Another way might be for a Lemmy instance to run a stake pool from the same machine. They could offer perks to users while also not requiring donations directly. Perhaps even reward users with the pool’s native tokens for every post they submit or something (this is a great place to bring up the drawbacks and very real issues that offering a perverse incentive can have: Cobra Effect).

The mere use of the chain (in this case Cardano would be my recommendation honestly because I prefer the tech and not because I have a bag of it) because that stake pool could mint native tokens and use those as a currency for use on their instance. Native tokens on Cardano are cheaper and not subject to the same fees as other chains to use and mint. So it would allow that instance to have its own native currency with very little overhead.

Look at Kbin’s old code. There’s some mention of Cardano wallets on there so I’m guessing that the creator of that was interested in this idea.

[-] koncertejo@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 hours ago

Cryptobros fuck off

[-] rglullis@communick.news 32 points 11 hours ago

No, that's absolute nonsense. You want people "interacting" with your instance to also be paying you?

I'm all for charging subscriptions from users of your instances. I'm all for commercial instances, but charging from people on other servers is next-level bullshit.

Seriously, I got angry just by reading this. Imagine if Verizon wanted to charge from calls made to their customers. Imagine if Google wanted to charge people that send emails to any Gmail address.

What a stupid concept, and I haven't even touched the crypto part of it.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 points 10 hours ago

Oh, MyCoolCommunity would require me to pay because it's on instanceA? Fuck that, hey everyone, come join MyCoolCommunity on instanceB!

[-] baliuzeger@lemmy.world -5 points 10 hours ago

Yes, and possibly instanceA provides better bandwidth and better moderation. if everyone do it, then we lose a good instance in the end.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 points 10 hours ago

As both an instance admin and a mod of a few communities, I can already tell you those are just expectations of any community already. That's not new, that's already the baseline. You have to find something even better than that.

[-] ericjmorey@discuss.online -2 points 9 hours ago

Peering agreements have been around for a long time on the internet, they're part the backbone of the internet.

Peering agreements for internet traffic, what a stupid concept.

[-] rglullis@communick.news 5 points 9 hours ago

I don't think your analogy holds. Peering agreements is something that companies do regardless of contractual obligations with their customers.

And they certainly do not require blockchains or cryptocurrency.

[-] ericjmorey@discuss.online 1 points 31 minutes ago

The peering agreements are based on network traffic of the customers. Passing through costs to customers is always a thing.

[-] baliuzeger@lemmy.world -1 points 11 hours ago

Thank you for your comments. Maybe my solution is stupid, but I think the problem I wanted to tackle is practical and simple: how to let the owners of high-quality instances get paid? I don't think everything should be free, in the end the users have to pay the fees in some way, and the nature of fediverse may induce difficulties for the process.

Or, let me rephrase it simpler: if lemmy.world or some big instances got shortage of donation someday, then what should we do? Just give up and go back to X/Facebook/reddit? I'm just trying to answer this question. Could you also share your ideas to this question?

[-] lime@feddit.nu 13 points 10 hours ago

if donations aren't enough, scale down until they are. if that's not an option, then we let those instances die and set up new ones.

this is a network for people. if someone is not enthusiastic about running an instance, they don't have to.

[-] rglullis@communick.news 3 points 10 hours ago

No, if users paid to their own instances, the network would be fine.

if lemmy.world or some big instances got shortage of donation someday, then what should we do?

Then hopefully enough people will learn the lesson and start donating to the existing commercial instances that exist, or start supporting whatever-next comes.

Bottom line is: trying to charge people who are not your direct users is absolutely moronic.

[-] baliuzeger@lemmy.world -3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Yes, ideally, if users pay to their own instances then everything's fine. I hope the world is ideal, either. But why shouldn't we have a mechanism that can make fediverse sustainable, not rely on the kindness of humanity? Even the mechanism charges the users, fediverse is still intrinsically far better than the privately owned platforms. You still can host your own instances cuz it's open source, you can defederate. I don't think the value of fediverse is degraded by charging other instances. Open source doesn't means enjoy everything for free.

[-] rglullis@communick.news 6 points 9 hours ago

But why shouldn’t we have a mechanism that can make fediverse sustainable, not reply on the kindness of humanity?

You charge from your users. The costs of any interactions from other instances will be because of your users.

Open source doesn’t means enjoy everything for free.

Please show me the receipts of every payment you've made for every time you've used some free software.

What really pisses me off is that you probably never even tried to see for yourself what type of costs and work entails running an instance, yet you are here claiming to have a solution to all of the fediverse. The more you try to argue your position the more clueless you sound.

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 14 points 10 hours ago

You shouldn’t host a Lemmy instance if it’s dependent on donations on day one.

You can use donations to offset your expenses, but you should be able to pay those expenses yourself, regardless of donations.

If you suddenly can’t afford to run your instance, because a lack of donations, you scaled too far beyond your own means.

[-] baliuzeger@lemmy.world -2 points 9 hours ago

I should make the context more specific. I don't want to host an expensive instance on day one. However, my long term goal is much bigger: I want to host an instance that serves as a competitive alternative to Facebook/Threads/X to the users in my country, because disinformation is overwhelming here. Thanks to federation, the instances all over the world helps, theoretically I don't have to scale as large as Facebook/X. But to reach that competitive scale, I don't think I can just rely on the "kind, moral and awakened" users' donation, so that's why I'm thinking about such charging mechanism.

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 5 points 5 hours ago

You shouldn't host an instance that should take on Meta and X. You should be part of the Fediverse, which can more realistically take on Meta and X.

[-] baliuzeger@lemmy.world 1 points 7 minutes ago

You're right, it doesn't have to be my instance. Fights with the fediverse is better. But why not having a paying mechanism to let the fediverse thrive?

Besides, I expect that tackling disinformation seriously costs significantly for human labor, and I doubt how many instance owners (in my country) are willing to do it.

[-] iso@lemy.lol 13 points 11 hours ago

Money involvement = enshitification

Let fediverse be unprofitable.

[-] rglullis@communick.news 2 points 10 hours ago

That's just as extreme, and just as short- sighted.

Enshittification is about companies that offer a bunch of things for "free" (actually, using VC funds) on an attempt to get to dominate the market first. When they get the users and establish a monopoly, the VC starts demanding to see the returns of their investment and that's when enshittification happens.

Smaller service providers that make a living out of charging directly for their services do not need VC and have no reason to squeeze their users and the nature of the Fediverse ensures that no single provider can create a monopoly.

Small, independent businesses are healthy and should be encouraged. Saying "money = bad" is a recipe to keep things indefinitely small and unable to compete with the alternatives.

[-] iso@lemy.lol 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Who will keep the money? Who will calculate what users will have to pay? Who will verify that the money is being used for the purpose it was paid for? How will bringing crypto payments to fediverse increase users, considering that 99% of people have never used crypto before? What will happen to the data of users who decide not to pay anymore? Let's assume that all instances offer paid membership; wouldn't monopoly occur if a corporate/suspicious instance offers completely free membership? Wouldn't offering paid memberships hold instance admins legally liable?

Who will leave the mainstream platforms that are completely free and have many more users, and then pay and use a platform that is 1 in 100,000 times the size?

Even though I received a donation of about $10 for 1 year, I think the current system should continue. If money is involved in something, it would be abused.

[-] rglullis@communick.news 0 points 8 hours ago

You are creating a strawman. I'm not saying that this particular model proposed by OP is something interesting. I'm not going to respond to that or the crypto part, but I can respond about the "money movement" required by my service :

Who will keep the money?

It's a business. People pay for a service. The service provider keeps it.

Who will calculate what users will have to pay?

It's a business. There is a price for the service. Service provider says "I want $X/month for the service". Customer pays if the price is acceptable to them, and goes elsewhere if not.

Who will verify that the money is being used for the purpose it was paid for?

It's a business. As long as the service is provided at a level that the customer is satisfied, customers have no deal in "verifying" anything.

[-] iso@lemy.lol 4 points 6 hours ago

Why a user should use your instance where there are other free alternatives though?

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 1 points 5 hours ago

They probably won't

[-] rglullis@communick.news 0 points 5 hours ago

Who is "they"?

Are you at all familiar with the concept of "market segmentation"? Do you think that every user thinks and values the same as you?

[-] rglullis@communick.news 0 points 5 hours ago

Because it's a professional service and they are willing to pay to not have to deal with:

  • instance drama
  • overloaded moderation teams
  • other entitled users who are not paying and still find themselves in the right to complain
  • admins who are doing this as hobby, so may disappear because their day job got more demanding and they can not maintain the instance
  • admins who were overly enthusiastic but not experienced enough and lose a whole database
  • etc, etc, etc.

There are some other benefits (specific to my business):

  • I pledged to give 20% of the profits to all the open source projects I host. So people paying me are indirectly supporting the Fediverse.
  • Full integration with Mastodon/Lemmy/Matrix/Funkwhale
  • Paying members can participate in a zero-commission crowdfunding platform (which is a shame that haven't caught on)

You know what is funny? For years we have talked about "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product", and yet completely ignore this when it comes to the people hosting Mastodon/Lemmy/Pleroma/Matrix servers. I don't think people really have learned the lesson.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 9 hours ago

Yeah, despite the strong anti-crypto sentiment on Lemmy, this is exactly the problem that projects like Nostr is trying to solve by integrating Lighting as a first-class payment system in the ecosystem.

Services get paid for by one of four ways:

  • Harvesting and reselling of user data. Which is wildly unpopular, and why a lot of people are on Lemmy and not Reddit or Facebook.
  • Ads. Which is also unpopular and again why people come to services like Lemmy
  • Pay-for-service, which is what you're suggesting, only via crypto, which is easier than accepting credit card transactions, and safer for users.
  • The hosted paying for it out of the goodness of their hearts. So, charity. Sometimes there's corporate charity, and that's nice, except for the potential for money coming with strings attached, now or eventually.

Someone always pays; its expensive to host a popular instance. People suggesting you should host for free are selfish freeloaders, so know that some people understand that hosting costs, and sympathize with with your desire to offset that cost.

I like the volunteer micro-transaction model. Those who can afford to pay some amount for good service, and hopefully this provides welfare for those who can't afford to pay. But the cryptocurrency space is a mess at the moment, and an economical currency (probably proof-of-stake rather than proof-of-work) needs to gain some traction, and overcome a lot of ignorant bigotry.

[-] dgerard@awful.systems 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Nostr also has the excellent cost-control mechanism of first requiring users to set up a cryptographic key pair - you can smell the freedom from here! - and second of being full of coiner spam. This keeps server usage to a minimum in practice,

[-] sxan@midwest.social 0 points 6 hours ago

Nothing wrong with having a key pair, but yeah, most of the content in Nostr is unfortunately cryptocurrency related.

[-] baliuzeger@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago

Thank you for you comments. I'm naive to crypto, so this is just an intuitive proposal. Hope someone can figure out some approaches which are acceptable to wider participants.

this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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