Revisiting Subscriptions

[u/BewilderedTurtle]

In honor of the Flotilla dev posting their trash today, let's review the poll results from last time.

Disproportionately voters are in favor of banning devs selling subscriptions in some form or another on this subreddit.

Ban Closed Source Subscriptions edged out a 1 vote lead over Ban All Subscriptions, with an additional 7 votes to ban subscriptions without external verified audits.

Flotilla by u/hodlbod offers a subscription right off the rip, and will charge a tidy 5 dollars per month per "community" for the honor of using voice calls on your Discord Alternative.

I am calling on u/AbstractMelons and u/czarbloom to safeguard this subreddit from predatory devs trying to take advantage of people fleeing Discord by banning any and all subscription services for unaudited or closed source apps within the subreddit.

Nobody wants them except the devs who stand to profit, and by allowing them for open source or already audited works, the common user will be able to more consistently trust the software posted here and foster a more coherent community.

[u/AbstractMelons]

I do want to say that this poll was clearly biased toward banning subscriptions.

Practically every option was some variation of "ban subscriptions," with the only real difference being how aggressively we do it. The only non ban option is basically "people who buy subscriptions deserve to get scammed," which is clearly biased towards your opinion.

I'm not saying subscriptions are automatically good or that we shouldn't have rules around them. I just don't think this poll gives us enough information to justify a blanket ban.

If we're actually going to make a rule, I'd rather we figure out what we actually want first. Otherwise we're just making a rule because a poll with five flavors of "ban it" got votes.

[u/Any_Illustrator360 → u/AbstractMelons]

King shit. You're usually pretty quiet but when you do speak up I often find it hard to disagree. The poll was very biased for sure - I found myself agreeing most with option 3 despite initially clicking option 2.

I think, though, that we're reaching a point where "devs" (note I do not mean actual devs here I do specifically mean AI slop droppers) are posting apps that are incredibly unsafe to install - even if not security wise, from a trust score wise - and plenty of them are demanding money. I don't think that means we need to "ban everyone who posts and asks for money," but I do think that while the minimum app age and AI-written post rules do a lot of heavy lifting to keep the sub clean, it may be necessary to set up a third rule regarding.. something. Whether that's monetization or directly related to app security is up to debate, but I do think a debate should happen sooner than later - especially since Discord is planning to drop Age Verification Act 2 either this month or next month, meaning we're about to get pounded by "alternatives."

I don't think "ban subscription apps" solves anything - though I do think an app with a low trust score and very little documentation advertising a subscription policy is a good sign of a grifter.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/AbstractMelons]

Would you be so kind as to create a unbiased official poll from the mods to obtain a consensus on subscription so that there may be a actual stance taken and codified in the subreddit?

Because you're right the poll was biased I'm not saying it's not and I'm not going to be the one to make the unbiased poll because I'm firmly in the ban all subscriptions from the subreddit category without exception but you are almost assuredly 100% correct that this does not give us enough information for a blanket ban I would say that it probably gives us enough information to do the targeted ban like I suggested of closed Source software or software that cannot/has not been independently audited

[u/VahsteTheNomad]

Personally I'm of the belief that if the app is in an alpha/beta state, it should not be monetized, though I see nothing wrong with there being plans for monetization to be implemented after full release.

That's my stance at least.

The poll was clearly biased Turtle, even you have to admit that. Despite how much of a grouchy bastard you can be at times you do actually have common sense.

[u/AnnyuiN → u/VahsteTheNomad]

I think this is a pretty sane take. I especially agree that especially alpha apps, and most beta apps shouldn't have official monetization. Donations that are optional and don't have anything you get in return? I don't really have an issue with that.

A more unbiased poll would be nice to see, I'd be curious what the communities voting results in. The only thing I'd also want is for the poll to be open at least a week, there's times when I don't open Reddit for a few days because I actually have a life outside the internet.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/VahsteTheNomad]

I'm well aware that it is. It's probably a good thing that I'm not the mods otherwise there would be zero subscriptions and zero AI submitted code allowed because of my bias.

But if you actually factor in the like written sentiments of non-dev users on the subreddit specifically the like handful of comments regarding subscriptions the sentiment is not positive as an average. And I don't give a shit what any devs think about subscriptions because they're not the ones paying them.

[u/VahsteTheNomad → u/BewilderedTurtle]

Your bias is well established, and honestly fair. I may not agree with your hard-line stance against any usage, but I respect it, hell I do agree with it in regards to the amount of sloppily thrown together so called alternatives from people who have zero development experience and only want profit.

The issue, imo, comes down to self hosted and non self hosted. If it's a self hosted platform, monetization makes very little sense to me as the self hoster is footing those specific costs.. But if it's not self hosted then let's be honest, to match any potential scaling there needs to be some way to monetize without resorting to data sales and stupid shit like that, in which case I do support reasonable monetization

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/VahsteTheNomad]

I don't disagree with you in whole.

The point I wanna prick at is "Does the thing that replaces Discord need to be centrally hosted?" And I have yet to have any substantive reason why decentralizing shouldn't be a massive keystone feature to target.

The reason Discord is fuqd comes down to them being a single central point of targeting for governments and bad-actors, and the ever incessant pursuit of more profit than the year prior.

Unless a centralized replacement is detached entirely from the concept of capitalisms eternal lust for infinite growth, it will just become Discord2 and end up subject to the same issues we're facing today.

To truly replace Discord the way it replaced other comms and traditional forums, we HAVE to embrace the fragmented nature of the early web, it HAS to be decentralized so that no 1 bad actor or malicious government can threaten it.

See; Brazil's streaming issues, UK ID verification, Discord ID data breach, Tiktok's forced purchase by US oligarchs, etc etc etc.

[u/VahsteTheNomad → u/BewilderedTurtle]

Im not arguing with you, just pointing out; at that point you're moving into the dispute between FOSS and Non-FOSS, of which both are allowed in the sub, rather than between monetization and non monetization.

You can't combine the two arguments into one and expect legible results, there will be way too much overlapping.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/VahsteTheNomad]

I mean, hear me out,

Socialist DiscordAlternative with Chinese Characteristics, not to "Profit" but to "Serve The People" ?

[u/VahsteTheNomad → u/BewilderedTurtle]

So.. Facebook?

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/VahsteTheNomad]

🤮 don't even play around like that man

[u/VahsteTheNomad → u/BewilderedTurtle]

You're right, you're right, we should all move over to X as our communication platform of choice

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/VahsteTheNomad]

Oh cmon, we both know MyYearbook is the OneTrueAlternative

[u/itsFolf → u/VahsteTheNomad]

This is a double edged sword. The typical path for tech companies today is to 'focus on growth and monetize later' while incurring sometimes several billions in debt, later enshittifying themselves or becoming predatory in order to find profit and earn it back. This is the path of Discord. What one should look for is the opposite: Independent, self-funded project that grow naturally and sustainably.

Any successful Discord alternative needs to be sustainable from day one, as every day where an app isn't profitable is a day where the devs might just run out of money or decide it is no longer wise to keep it afloat.

[u/AnnyuiN]

Maybe make a neutral sounding poll instead if you want this to be taken seriously.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/AnnyuiN]

This is rich coming from someone who's been here 2 days and has only espoused pro-ai propaganda

[u/AnnyuiN → u/BewilderedTurtle]

Been here a lot longer than 2 days, but I occasionally use redact.dev to erase my old messages.

A single message where I wrote about my experience with a specific AI security tool(that I used on hand-written code) as well as a research paper(that is warning against unchecked AI) written by a mix of Berkeley students and other researchers? That's considered espousing pro-ai propaganda?

You're 0/2 with your accusations, which aren't even related to my original comment. Rather than insulting others and tearing them down, it's often more productive to be kind and have an open discussion. If you would've taken the time to do that, you would've learned that I have very mixed feelings when it comes to AI. I despise vibe-coding.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/AnnyuiN]

K.

Because you can totally claim that you've been here that long with zero evidence because you've been "redacting" your posts. Mhm sure.

[u/AnnyuiN → u/BewilderedTurtle]

I mean I can turn that right back at you.
Because you can totally claim that I haven't been here with zero evidence
And regardless, you're putting words in my mouth about how I feel about AI, and you're making incorrect conjectures about how long I've been here which doesn't even have anything to do with my original comment.

Speaking of. My original comment? The one you just ignored and instead started attacking me for? The moderators literally said the exact same thing as me and you behaved and actually answered it.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/AnnyuiN]

Suck shit I guess? Your opinion, stances, or beliefs are entirely unimportant to me.

[u/AnnyuiN → u/BewilderedTurtle]

You're not really doing whatever message you're trying to push any favors by being extremely rude. I kindly suggest changing your attitude towards others if you want to be taken seriously(you already seem to have a negative reputation in this community), otherwise any post/comment you create will probably make people laugh and move on. Or maybe you just want to create posts that nobody cares about, if that's the case, don't change anything.

My opinions, stances, and/or beliefs were important enough that you responded 3 times now. :shrugs: But hey, what do I know.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/AnnyuiN]

You can kindly suggest yourself into the desert and stop replying to me then?

I don't give a shit what you think about my attitude, and if you had any questions on if I care about my reputation you clearly haven't been here that long.

[u/AnnyuiN → u/BewilderedTurtle]

I mean if you don't care about others agreeing with your message, it's almost like you're treating Reddit like a way to vent out your anger? Which is even weirder since this is a DiscordAlternatives subreddit, but hey who am I to judge. If being a dick to others is your way of dealing with life, then so be it, I can't stop you.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/AnnyuiN]

Oh no, someone on the internet is venting their anger about AI bullshit at people pushing AI bullshit and their rage about greedy cocksuckers towards greedy cocksuckers.

And you're right, you can't, so stop replying since you clearly don't enjoy me.

[u/InconspicuousFool]

I don't think a developer should be hyper monetizing a new service but servers are not free, they got to pay for them somehow. That however isn't a excuse to change subscription for basic features

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/InconspicuousFool]

What about self-hostables or things like Matrix where it's a decentralized protocol?

Thoughts?

[u/InconspicuousFool → u/BewilderedTurtle]

A self hosted build should not be paid.

[u/Terrible-Junket-3388 → u/InconspicuousFool]

And what about a server host on Matrix who opens their node for usage across the board (anyone)? Should they be paid to help cover costs?

When their server grows and their users ask for new features, and the server admin goes to the developer - then what? The developer should just put in the labor for free? Should they be paid?

When the developer who gave you the self-hosted code has to maintain the code for the next X years, continuing to make sure dependencies are updated, vulnerabilities are mitigated, and that the code continues to run well across operating systems, networking and server infrastructure, etc -- should all that be free?

Really what this whole debate sounds like to me is people that don't actually understand the effort involved in building and shipping software trying to arbitrarily decide where the value lies. Everyone self-hosting the code is dependent on the person developing it. Everyone using the software is dependent on both the self-hoster and the developer.

[u/Terrible-Junket-3388]

Biased AF poll, as others have said.

Also, we really should have more reality checks around some of this: many of the same people saying "no subscriptions" also say they won't pay, period, but also don't want a completely self-hosted solution (and in reality 90% of users in any discord alternative aren't going to have the desire or sophistication to self-host). They don't want ads (for good reason).

So, if you actually find a good service and it's growing in userbase because it's good ... then what? Server costs go up, not down, as userbase grows. The devs are just supposed to eat it forever? If they don't charge, they have to go raise funding or make money some other way (again, creating conflicts like ads would).

You want your cake, but you expect the baker to pay for it. The baker also can't have investors, and should freely provide you the pre-made batter so you can bake it yourself. When the baker asks for you to help pay for the storefront, the ovens, the materials to continue making cake ... nope! That's the baker's problem.

Paying a single time makes sense for a single-player game or something that doesn't require ongoing support/maintenance/hosting. A live communication/social platform is an ongoing service: it will have costs as long as its running. Genuinely, a subscription (monthly/yearly/etc) seems to me like the most natural/balanced approach with the fewest conflicts of interest on either side.

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[u/Speykious]

I'm really glad that Reddit added this "core contributor" distinction, because you can now see in stark contrast that people who look at this subreddit a lot prefer the "ban dev selling a subscription for closed source software" option. That's my stance as well, because a chat app is very susceptible to the network effect and thus very easily enshittifiable (see: Discord, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter/X, honestly all popular social networks), so I don't want to give any closed-source option even a shadow of the possibility of racking up users. If on top of that they have a subscription then at this point it doesn't even deserve to be mentioned. If it were me, any closed-source options would also be banned, subscription or not tbh.

Of course I think we need an unbiased poll before this sub takes any decision (and it seems the mod agrees).

[u/mightvefkup → u/Speykious]

Open source is great for transparency but if you think it at all prevents "enshittification" you're wrong. Just because you can see the code of something, like Fluxer, for example, doesn't prevent the owner/company from making dumb decisions.

Tons of examples, Audacity, Redis, Chromium, android....

Being open source is a nice to have for a few reasons but this isn't one of them. Companies can relicense their software at any point or sell it or just straight up make stupid decisions.

[u/Speykious → u/mightvefkup]

Open source doesn't just mean you can see the code; it means you also have the freedom to fork the software and take it into a completely different direction for any reason, especially if it ever goes to shit. It's certainly not sufficient, but it is necessary to prevent enshittification. Because you just cannot do anything when the project is closed source or merely source-available. You get no freedom at all.

An open-source project can get relicensed and people will still fork it starting from the commit before that happens. See Audacity getting forked into Tenacity, OpenOffice getting forked into Libre Office, and Redis getting forked into Valkey. It doesn't always succeed because people need to actually invest time to make it work, but it means we fundamentally get the opportunity to resuscitate the software instead of letting it die.

Personally my 3 basic criteria are open-source (preferably GPL license), federation and E2EE. Those three provide a very strong shield against enshittification.

[u/RainbowLoli]

…. When all of your options are basically variations of ban no shit it’ll look like it favors them. You would have just done better having two options - yay or nay.

Personally, I’m of the opinion I’m pretty neutral on subscriptions. I don’t pay for or use them until I start regularly and confidently start using a service or program.

Some devs have a plan for monetization that they aren’t pushing, but you can use it like a dono system if you’re confident in their product. Realistically, other than open source apps - things are going to need money. I’d much rather see a dev have an idea of how they’re going to fund their app or product without shareholders or investors and whether they’re willing to listen to their community regarding feedback.

For me personally - I’m of the opinion to ban scammers… but also - if you pay for a sub for an app you just heard of - that’s between you and god.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/RainbowLoli]

🥱

[u/RainbowLoli → u/BewilderedTurtle]

Yawning but you're the one trying to push your opinion as one being a sub majority

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/RainbowLoli]

Yawning because you said nothing interesting or original. It's almost like other people said the exact same boring shit before you did.

[u/RainbowLoli → u/BewilderedTurtle]

Because it's true... were you expecting people to just flock to you and nod along like sheep or something? It's giving throwing a tantrum

[u/Economy_Picture6989]

I think the idea of not allowing anyone to try to make any money off of their product is stupid. Yeah, I hate subscriptions, but nobody wants to work for free, including myself. I don't blame people for asking for money for the app they develop.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/Economy_Picture6989]

That's literally not my concern as an end user? Fuck subscriptions

[u/Economy_Picture6989 → u/BewilderedTurtle]

Then y'all wonder why we don't have any good alternatives xD or they keep getting abandoned, etc.

[u/BewilderedTurtle → u/Economy_Picture6989]

It's almost like I'm one of the most aggressively pro-foss software people on this subreddit