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Comment by jkmcf | Hacker News Reader

I love to support creators, but I wish there was something common between free and significant subscription price so that I could show appreciation more readily.

Examples I would use without thinking for worthwhile-to-me content:

  - "tip" options in the App Store
  - 10/year
  - 1/month

Similarly, I'm surprised these newsletter gatekeepers haven't implemented a tip jar where you put in $/year and it gets divided based on readership.

I know this has been tried in other ways, but I think Substack and Medium could make this work.

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I know I'll get hated for this on Hacker News, but this has been solved quite well on the bitcoin & Nostr side of things. It's easy to tip couple cents or whatever amounts and there are many apps / websites that support that.

The main difference is that using the legacy dollar rails is super annoying for small amounts, since there are multiple banks/companies on the path between you and the author you are trying to tip. And each of these intermediators needs their $$$ from you.

> I'm surprised these newsletter gatekeepers haven't implemented a tip jar where you put in $/year and it gets divided based on readership.

I've seen a bunch of publication with a "tip" button, but I suspect it's not worth the effort. Very few people pay in the first place, so a random one-off payment of $1, $10, or even the "unicorn" $100 is not worth standing up the infrastructure and dealing with the tax paperwork.

On the flip side, if you find 100 people who really like your content and are willing to substantially support it on an ongoing basis with a subscription, you end up with recurring revenue that makes it a better deal.

My site has both subscription and one-time donations. The subscriptions bring in 90% of the revenue even though more people have Paypal accounts than accounts with specific crowdfunding services.

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