I have been trying to think of an effective way to invite voluntary payments that can generate income to cover the cost of my network development.
Would it be possible for me to create a private "Subscriber's Group" that existing members can only join by paying a subscription? Whatever is then offered in the group would then be exclusive for the paying members.
The group could be public or private in terms of visibility to non-members, but to be a member of the group would require a payment. It is possible that some members would like to be seen to be paying supporters of the network, while others might prefer to be invisible supporters. I would like to provide both options.
At the moment, it seems that the focus of the subscription system is on files displayed for sale on the profiles of sellers.
Currently, sellers can sell files, but they can't easily sell membership of a group created by the seller.
Or have I missed something obvious?
What I like about this idea, is that all members can join the network as a whole for free, and then in their own time consider whether or not to pay a voluntary subscription in return for a "privilege" (membership of an exclusive group).
How to make being a member of such a group actually interesting is a separate and more difficult issue!
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An extension of this idea might be exclusive "selling and buying clubs" - groups that require payment to join, but where individual members can then sell their stuff to other members of the club, and only to those other members.
This might facilitate the formation of wholesale- and retail-level groups (shops/markets).
For example, a retailer looking for new inventory might be willing to pay to join the relevant wholesale clubs to buy cheaper goods, and then retail them through a group that is free to join.
The retail shop is really just a curated collection that may present goods more attractively, or in more useful combinations, than the creator of each item can. For some kinds of item, buyers might like to be part of a club shop where they can talk to other shoppers while buying or just window-shopping.
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PJ Matthews, Kyoto
Migrated from Ning 2.0. Now at Jamroom 6 beta and using Jamroom Hosting for The Research Cooperative (researchcooperative.org)
updated by @researchcooperative: 10/10/17 11:49:48AM
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