I think this is more toward content creators who get very little. Relays are paid for and can charge sats , as they do. I already pored more than 200k into relays and their membership giveaways. 🐶🐾🫡
Discussion
I think the problem on the relay side is that at a point it will become more expensive to scale. Currently you can run relays on a relatively cheap VPS but eventually you are likely to need clustered backend databases, multiple front end servers and load balancers to handle load. One time payments for relays won’t be sustainable so they will need to move to subscription models. The same scaling issues for image hosting.
I have a thought that for content creators and relays the solution might be content creator specific relays which charge a small fee per event written. A split of the fee goes to the relay operator and a split goes to the creator. That way it supports both without requiring additional zaps on top.
A lot of people won't pay. And the ones that do will gravitate towards one or two big relays (centralizing). What about the devs? These apps are free and I'm sure these guys are either sponsored by someone wealthy or living off donations (not a comfortable feeling).
Luckily relays only have to worry about pushing text. The guys hosting the media are the real MVPs.
There's gotta be a way to monetize this and preserve the atmosphere.
All good points. I guess premium features in the apps is a good way to earn for app devs. Relays can be paid, and that should be the way.
Media is a hard problem, and costly. Subscription is one way, but revenue sharing is another. Many ways to solve problems, just choosing one that will work and scale is really hard! 🐶🐾🫡
I suggested earlier that they should have convenience features as part of a subscription model. I.e. Push notifications. Media uploading. Things that don't break the app but make life easier.
Good point. Probably more creative features that save time and make things more convenient for sure! 🐶🐾🫡
My thought was only really for the specific case of creators wanting to monetise content and providing the infrastructure to do that. Media hosting would also be part of the package. You could have subscriptions for a creator and their notes/media are only provided to those who have paid the subscription or zappable preview notes that unlock “premium” content. In each case a share goes to the relay/media host and a share to the creator.
I agree that the bigger issue is how to provide a low cost solution for the majority of users who just want to chat, post memes etc, but still cover the costs of the infrastructure requirements and developers. I don’t know what the solution is but I can’t see many people paying a subscription for 5-10 relays, media hosting, a mobile client and a desktop client each month. And then donating to devs and zapping notes on top of that.