Fediverse has the potential to help create durable and interoperable social networks. But many creators and businesses rely on larger, closed platforms because they offer a direct way to make money from viewers, which is currently difficult to do in the Federation Universe.
Sub.club is working to resolve this issue.
The idea is that this will allow users on ActivityPub-based platforms like Mastodon to easily offer paid subscriptions and premium content while enjoying a 6% discount on top of payment processing fees. It could solve a big problem with the Federation Universe right now: It’s not easy to make a living from it unless you direct your followers back to existing platforms like Patreon, which have since shut down and require users to visit a specific website or app to do so. Get most of the content.
Bart Decrem, one of the founders of sub.club, said bringing money into the federal ecosystem and providing a way for creators to get paid could be an important component. edge. “So we think this work is very important for all of us who believe in the promise of the internet.”
This may be especially true if the Federated Universe succeeds to the point of creating what sub.club consultant Anuj Ahooja calls “the last network effect.” This is the idea of everyone joining a federated pluralistic platform built on open protocols, where it is possible to interact online and move from one network to another and from one platform to another at will. “From there, you can drive so much innovation around social media,” Ahuja said.
While spread, and many people learned about the news on other platforms. I’m not sure everyone is going to be in one place, or if they want to be, and the profile you carry with you might be part of that.
Currently, sub.club is only available to Mastodon users, and depending on how you use Mastodon, you may encounter the service in different ways. On the Mastodon web client, creators can direct people to a subscription page.
In client terminals that include rich subscription experiences (currently Mammoth and Ice Cubes, both made by the same development team), creators can add a subscribe button that appears at the top of their profile and lets users subscribe to the page.
As a creator, publishing a post that your subscribers will see requires an extra step: you must private message your sub.club account. People who subscribe to your post will then see it in their feed below.
Sub.club doesn’t just want to push creators to just use its services; Instead, the team envisions building “a subscription button that integrates with other paid subscription products,” Ahooja said. That’s why it’s being released as a developer preview; “If you’re going to build something, build it in a way that’s standard and portable across multiple services,” Ahooja said.
According to this FAQ, it has also created an API to build advanced bots, so you can program a silly bot to add animals to photos.
Sometime this fall, sub.club also plans to let Mastodon server administrators use the tool to help fund maintenance, rather than asking users for support through platforms like Patreon or Ko-Fi.
“There’s a lot of free labor running the Federation universe right now,” Ahuja said. “So let’s make sure people are compensated.”
