I’ve actually had an idea for funding both 3rd-party apps and potentially server instances: a reddit gold-equivalent.
It essentially would function like a super-upvote (no impact on post/comment rank, just “cosmetic”). Users can buy it through the app or website (for instances that allow and support it), and the cost would be fixed to some (low) value. That way, it’s like a donation with perks.
However, this would only support the app/instance where “Lemmy gold” is purchased. So, instead, when the user gives gold to a post/comment, the donation gets split between the user’s home instance, the instance where the post/comment is hosted, and the app/instance where the gold was purchased (either even split or some percentage TBD).
I think this would help offset the costs of running an instance, developing an app and handling banking transactions, but of course it’s a rough idea. I’d be happy to know what potential issues/avenues for exploitation people could find with such a system.
I do have a bit of relevant programming experience but sadly not much time for it. I’d imagine the way to get it started is to run an experimental instance and collaborate with a specific app like memmy in the beginning, then make one-on-one agreements with other instances until it becomes a norm across the federation.
Some random thoughts:
- receiving gold could have a small knock-on perk e.g. for each gold you receive you get one silver to give to someone else, and it ends there.
- receiving gold would always be purely cosmetic, i.e. never have an impact ranking-wise and no UX perks
- maybe eventually used on Mastodon/across the fediverse?
- no idea how people would react to it
- no idea what the percentages should be, or how transactions should be handled (e.g. bundle all from one instance to another daily?)
- it’s starting to smell like crypto/NFTs, but this would be absolutely fungible, and no speculative market crap here please
Thoughts? (Sorry for the wall of text, had this idea brewing for some time)
Looks awesome, great job!
As a sidenote, you’d never ever see whole “Opa!” thing in Greece, it was just an invention of Greek restaurant owners in US to attract tourists (much like fortune cookies). I know I should just be dismissing it as harmless, but for some reason it always annoys me when I see it :D
Once again though, great job! It looks absolutely delicious and I bet it was super tasty.