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.
@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.