Participating on me.dm costs @medium community members $5/month (or $50/year).
This development requires context.
The Founder of @medium is Twitter Co-Founder @ev. Another Twitter Co-Founder, @biz, also has an account there.
@medium is now competing with Twitter. More importantly, @medium is undercutting Twitter in terms of subscription price.
Remember, Twitter Blue is $8/month with ads!
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/7/23628642/medium-opens-mastodon-subscription-membership-twitter
I don’t think Twitter Co-Founders @ev and @biz would ever say, “@medium is competing with Twitter.”
But that’s what this is: me.dm is a microblogging site built on Twitter’s biggest competitor, Mastodon.
And they’re providing services that not only Twitter won’t provide (ad-free experience) but can’t provide (federation).
At a substantially lower price too!
A year ago, many people said this would never happen.
“The Fediverse can’t be monetized,” they said.
Now @medium has come along and monetized their Mastodon server.
Not only can the Fediverse be monetized, it’s being done by Twitter Co-Founder @ev (though @coachtony, amongst others, probably drove this initiative).
That’s symbolism for you!
Pay close attention to @medium because their subscription model is a taste of things to come.
Like it or not, they provide the social validation for other folks to come in and try to monetize the Fediverse.
This is happening.
It’s important to look at other ways to fund the Fediverse beyond what @medium is doing.
I like what ActivityPub Co-Founder @evan is doing with CoSocial.
And mastodon.social is run by @Gargron’s non-profit.
I imagine crowdfunding will be a big deal.
I’m all for people making a living on the Fediverse—so long as it’s thoughtful, ethical, and not driven by surveillance capitalism.
@atomicpoet Do you like it... or not?
@rasterweb I’m taking a “wait and see” perspective.
I do think this is better than Twitter Blue.
@atomicpoet it'll be curious if a unified payment system might be implemented in the same way they are trying for with Flathub but for all federated networks.
@Sh4d0w_H34rt Actually, @reiver and I are looking at crowdfunding options.
@atomicpoet i'm sure the people who don't like it will just defederate.
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron Hachyderm's @nivenly is very much worth watching if you're interested in fediverse governance, and how it relates to monitization. https://nivenly.org/blog/2023/03/01/nivenly.helloworld/
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron #SurveillanceCapitalism thrives wherever #Identity is overlooked as a fundamental aspect of solution architecture.
User-controlled Self-Sovereign Identity (#SSI) is the way forward, but this important manner is generally cloaked in confusion that ultimately retains the status quo.
You have no control over your data without full control of your identity and its authenticity.
@Mastodon offers a step-forward via use of "rel=me" .
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron @Mastodon Beyond "rel=me" @Mastodon could incorporate an additional option via the use of #NetIDTLS which simply boils down to a #TLS based authentication challenge to prove possession of credentials notarized in an #X509 cert.
Implementation wise, it means adding a credentials lookup to the end of a conventional TLS-handshake.
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron @Mastodon Existing #Github repos that implement the original #WebIDTLS variant of this protocol.
[1] https://github.com/linkeddata/node-webid -- node.js implementation
[2] https://github.com/bennomadic/django-webid-auth -- #Python
[3] https://github.com/OpenLinkSoftware/NetIDTLS/tree/main/demos/virtuoso -- Github repo of our #VirtuosoRDBMS implementation using VSP (our #PHP equivalent that's #DBMS hosted)
#NetIDTLS extends #WebIDTLS via support for mailto:, acct:, and ldap: identifiers; and looking SHA-1 hashes of Public Keys.
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron
I'm a Medium member (& Partner Program writer), and I don't see the $5/month fee as a charge for posting on me.dm. I see it as a fee for accessing members-only stories on Medium, as it has been since they started charging for these. The Mastodon access is an added membership perk.
Yes, people can use other popular Mastodon instances for free. But operating them costs money, regardless, whether that comes from donations or is footed solely by the admin(s).
@funcrunch @atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron
It will also be nice if comment sections of #Medium articles are part of the fediverse and allow others to also interact and comment if it is a free article, of course.
I feel there are many use-cases and features we are yet to discover.
You know, like what #Discourse should have been after joining the #Fediverse
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron
> It’s important to look at other ways to fund the Fediverse beyond what @medium is doing.
Take a look at what @hachyderm is doing with @nivenly - @nova and crew are setting up so members will fund the operation and have a voice in how it evolves (it’s entirely possible I’m not phrasing this quite the right way).
@atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron I think unions and membership organizations should in many cases consider hosting an instance for only members as a benefit of membership. Especially valuable for orgs where the members validation of their association with that organization has value (so imagine the Writers Guild or Screen Actors Guild offering this for their members - with the additional value of offering validation that in those cases a celebrity’s account it really them)
@Rycaut @atomicpoet @medium @evan @Gargron same thing for government agencies.
@atomicpoet @medium everything comes at a cost. And money will bring compromises and we will lose hope I am afraid
@jupiter_rowland @fediversenews Medium, the blogging platform, is not part of the Fediverse.
Also, Plume is no longer actively developed.
@atomicpoet @jupiter_rowland @fediversenews I use Plume personally and I'm in the matrix chat for it. It looks like the dev is coming back as much as he can so that could change soon.
Although not super developed it is pretty solid software