Hey everyone,

I was curious on whether anyone has ever thought about potentially introducing a Fediverse equivalent to platforms like:

  • Ko-fi
  • Patreon
  • Gumroad
  • LiberaPay
  • Buy Me a Coffee
  • Web Monetization (e.g., Coil)
    etc.

What I’m imagining is a decentralized platform that allows users across the Fediverse to directly tip or support creators, all without relying on plugins or third-party integrations.

For instance, I know that creators on platforms like PeerTube can add plugins for cryptocurrency or payment solutions, but these require additional configuration or technical know-how.

What I’m suggesting is a straightforward tipping platform built directly into the Fediverse ecosystem, one that doesn’t depend on plugins—just a seamless way to support creators on ALL Fediverse platforms.

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To clarify upfront:

  • I am NOT a “crypto bro.” I’m not here to promote any cryptocurrency or blockchain agenda—I’m just thinking about user-friendly, decentralized solutions.
  • While I AM open-minded about crypto-based approaches, I feel there’s potential for a non-crypto, user-first Fediverse tipping system.

__

What do you all think?

  • Has this idea been explored?
  • Are there any projects in the works that aim to address this?
  • Do you think it’s feasible or even a good fit for the Fediverse ethos?

__

I’d love to attempt something like this myself, but sadly I personally lack the time, technical knowledge, and energy to make it happen.

Still, I’d be really curious to hear the community’s thoughts.

Thanks in advance for sharing your insights.

  • imaqtpieAEnglish
    121·
    3 days ago

    Instead of having one giant jerk censoring things like on Reddit, there are instead dozens of little petty ones wanting to defederate from other instances.

    This false equivalency pains me to my core. I don’t really have anything to say about the rest of your comment, but ffs can people stop with this nonsense take? You’re implying that the difference between centralized corporate authoritarianism and decentralized grassroots democracy is negligible.

    Lemmy is free and collaborative, reddit is censored and exploitative. The fact that people consistently try to equate two opposite paradigms is just mind-boggling to me.

    • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
      43·
      3 days ago

      This false equivalency pains me to my core. I don’t really have anything to say about the rest of your comment, but ffs can people stop with this nonsense take? You’re implying that the difference between centralized corporate authoritarianism and decentralized grassroots democracy is negligible.

      It might very well be that the corporate censors are worse human beings than the Lemmy censors. That is completely independent of which platform experiences more censorship. It’s literally against the Lemmy World terms of service to discuss unsanctioned brands of cat food without supplying scientific sources. That nailed Lemmy’s coffin shut for me. There is nothing like that on Reddit. It’s ok, I’m not trapped in here with you. You’re trapped in here with me.

      • Kilgore Trout@feddit.itEnglish
        6·
        3 days ago

        You chose to base your accound on lemmy.world. The advantage of federation is that you can live in another server that is more akin to your tastes, while still being able to interact with lemmy.world if you like.

        • solrize@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          3 days ago

          Yes I use lemmy.ml sometimes, but stay mostly on .world by inertia. It doesn’t make much difference. It does matter where the communities are. c/vegan is big and active and it’s on .world. The catfood incident there didn’t affect me directly (I’m not a subscriber) but it affected all the participants, many of whom are on other servers. So it’s not enough for users to move from .world. Communities would have to move or split as well. The federation model is that .world exports its censorship to every server that federates with it.

          In fact, community fragmentation is already a huge fediverse fail even without censorship causing even more fragmentation.

          • imaqtpieAEnglish
            1·
            2 days ago

            Community fragmentation is a feature, not a bug. Your actual complaint isn’t about censorship, but about the small size of the Lemmy userbase. If the userbase was bigger, there would be more active server options, and the moderation of each individual server (such as lemmy.world) wouldn’t matter as much. Ironically, by ignorantly claiming that Lemmy has a problem with censorship, you’re actively working against attempts to grow the userbase.

            Not to mention, if your biggest complaint of censorship is that lemmy.world bans discussion of vegan cat food, let me play the world’s smallest violin for you

              • imaqtpieAEnglish
                1·
                2 days ago

                Lemmy as a platform has no censorship.

                Lemmy.world is one specific server among hundreds that has a little bit of censorship.

                It just happens to be the biggest as this moment in time, but that could easily change if they were actually censoring things to any significant extent. It never would have become the biggest in the first place if it were as censorship prone as you seem to believe.

                Encounter censorship on Lemmy > move to a different server

                Encounter censorship on reddit > nothing you can do

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  2·
                  2 days ago

                  Defederation is censorship. It’s part of the platform.

                  Don’t get me wrong, I support defederating from shitty instances, but it’s still a censor deciding what members see.

                  • imaqtpieAEnglish
                    1·
                    2 days ago

                    I mean… I’m not so sure about that logic. Technically you aren’t wrong, but I think your point is misleading. In order for censorship to be problematic, it needs to be enforced by an entity with a significant amount of authority or control.

                    A communist newsletter technically engages in “censorship” against conservative viewpoints, but that’s hardly problematic, is it? Parents preventing young children from being exposed to objectionable content is technically “censorship”.

                    If you voluntarily choose to use a specific server when you have many other options at your fingertips, I just don’t see how the colloquial usage of censorship applies to that situation. Seems like more of a semantic quibble than an actual flaw of Lemmy as a platform.

                    Bottom line is that anyone can spin up a Lemmy server for free and post anything they want, and others can freely join or federate with that server and access that information without any barriers. That’s why I would argue the platform does not have any inherent censorship.