Interesting. Although the “pay for feature” falls in the charity trap again, no? People unfortunately aren’t willing to donate much (see the peanuts that Lemmy devs get for instance).
I don’t think “donate to vote” is particularly appealing to the average user.
Hmm… It adds a value proposition though, doesn’t it? A simple “donate so that we can keep running n developing” doesn’t seem to be working that well for Lemmy it seems.
Saying, “if you donate, u literally get to participate in legislation for the future development of the coop” + stuff like special badges kinda provide SOME more value than the free user, no?
I dunno, I can’t really think of a better way for fundraising directly from consumers other than this. A third option is offering special, branded internal social media platforms (like Yammer) for businesses, but that’s it.
I so so wish if we could have a user funded nice, completely developed fediverse social media platform that also is a coop haha.