What’s the best way to handle subscription services on Lightning?
#AskNostr
Discussion
Pay per use.
Id rather pay 500 sats to read an article than 10k sats for a monthly subscription to a news site, just as example.
Not sure if this answers your question
This is a different use case.
BTC Pay server has a plugin for it, but it's kind of rudimentary. I've been kind of working on building out my own solution for this because I don't really think a great one exists at the moment.
You’re the second person who has recommended Flash to me. Will check it out.
Nostr Wallet Connect using a budget for the exact subscription amount. This also allows the user to maintain the ability to cancel at any time by simply deleting the connection string.
But it only works if the user also has an NWC-enabled wallet, which is hard to ensure.
OakNode is interesting for recurring paments.
ZapPlanner is cool too, but sometimes it doesn't work for me. Is this because not everyone has a NWC wallet?
Oak Node looks like it uses NWC as well, from the description on Umbrel. That said, my Start9 is my node, and it isn't available there... It also suffers from the same problem nostr:nprofile1qqswum4p82uluhz2dr40nvdrflspffntgqghc58w9fs57nx6jkdkuaqd5rvcc pointed out, that most users probably don't have access to Oak Node via their wallet provider.
It's on Umbrel, but itcs been a while since I've used it. Nostr was around, but I used Oak Node before zaps existed.
That is absolutely true! Got another option for service-provider initiated subscription payments that is more widely adopted by wallets? I can't think of one.
I think NWC is pretty early in adoption, and yet anyone who runs their own node can use it with either Alby Hub or LNBits, there are viable custodial options in Coinos and Minibits, and self-custody in Electrum wallet, if I remember right. Would love to see Zeus' embedded LND support it, as well.
I hadn't heard of Flash, which someone else had mentioned, but from what I can see, that's just invoicing. So the user still needs to manually approve payment being sent each time, while a subscription implies the funds are automatically deducted each month without user interaction required.
I was randomly thinking about that today from a buyer/user perspective.
As the customer I want all the benefits of a small amount of use, if I end up not utilizing it as expected, so that I don't have to cancel or feel like I wasted money on something that I thought I was going to use but didn't.
At the same time, I want the benefit of being a frequent user if I do take full advantage during a period and get good value from it at full budget. In my head I landed on a hybrid kind of flex pay credit structure.
Each month you pay a small fixed fee that unlocks a pool of rollover credits. Light month? You barely touch the pool and the unused credits slide forward , maybe expire, maybe not, no guilt though. Heavy month?
Burn through your credits and then you’re seamlessly billed per-unit or at a cheaper rate block top-up amount for cheaper unit refills, until you hit a soft cap on needing to pay and everything past that rides free. On day one you get a Lightning invoice for the base fee.
This may not answer your wallet, lightning, invoice, payment mechanics, but in the world of SaaS and micropayments we need to solve this, and this is what I was churning while driving across town.
I think it's all about what you're subscribing too.. In my case, if there was a spreadsheet that could compete with Excel, and have the capability to link to another program for real time quotes on securities, I'd be looking at it for sure. Someone else, it might be a place to post your music. What services could a Client offer young musicians? Hell, old musicians too.. ( I happen to know one of them very well :) ) How about a Client involved in secure elections? A one time subscription to vote securely? It's a matter of the services and products catching up to the technology.