I’ve been thinking a lot recently about PeerTube, Loops, Bandwagon, and other platforms in the Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.
Don’t forget the instance operators! How can we get them more donations?
I recently found out about https://crowdbucks.fund/ (which is done for the Fediverse) and https://liberapay.com/
Maybe a first step would be to offer a native way to link to such donation platforms (link on the user profile, link on each posting, …)
Also donations for the instance should be promoted more prominent.
super necessary if we expect anyone (outside of hobbyists) to even think of putting their content on the fediverse first or at the same time as other platforms
Keep it away is my strong advice. Having to deal with banks will mean having to deal with regulations. Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros. Having to deal with paywalls is a barrier to entry
The internet was a better place without money touching everything!
I don’t have strong feelings either way, but money does touch everything, overtly or not, when it comes to civilisation. Time spent volunteering on Fediverse projects is effectively money spent (at least to some degree), and instances cost time & fees to maintain.
But I guess to argue against myself-- you have to think that without some kind of ongoing responsible oversight, then the worst aspects of capitalism might predictably find a way to screw it all up if left to its own devices. Then again, maybe the scale involved makes that less likely. *shrug*
Having to deal with crypto means having to deal with crytpo bros
The internet was also a better place when people using it were more open minded
Open minded to being scammed? No thanks.
Your argument sounds like “pc are bads because of virus”
If 99.9% of PCs were solely made to steal your credit card info, then yes.
Most of crypto volume is done on bitcoin and ethereum network which are built to be less scammy than a bank. You could indeed argue that 99.9% of existing cryptocurrencies are scam because there are thousand existing projects that imitates bitcoin, similarly one could argue that 99.9% iphones copies are a scam
Bitcoin and Ethereum only have liquidity in the market because scammers use it for their pig butchering etc. scams. And all the major exchanges are complicit in that. Many Banks are scammy, yes, but not that scammy by a long shot. Sorry to burst your bubble 🤷
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy?tab=readme-ov-file#crypto
You can support lemmy by donating cryptocurrencies, they are not only used by scammers.
lmao, the blockchain that popularized NFTs is less scammy than a bank? touch grass
Bitcoin and ethereum blockchains are built to be open, public and decentralized. The difference between these and a bank could be compared to the difference between reddit and lemmy. Is reddit a scam? Perhaps not on a large scale but it has all the potential to become a scam once its executives decide to do so. Lemmy is not owned by a single person which makes it way more harder to “control”.
If you allow artists to display their work in various communities along with the ability to post links in their profiles, but you restrict actual posts to disallow self-promotion, it’s the best of both worlds, IMO.
In other words, if you can’t include self-promotion in your community posts, but everyone knows you have the links in your profile, it attracts less grifters and keeps the feed clean, while allowing anyone interested to contact a poster directly or ask them promotional questions via DMs.
That said, hosting a full-fledged marketplace is not a good idea, IMO. There are laws and banks involved, which mean lawyers and taxes, and volunteer management does not work for that. There are already marketplaces that do that well, and allowing artists to post their own links of choice in their profiles will let them steer actual business to other platforms, while keeping the fediverse for display, review, share and critique. My opinion, anyway.
