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Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

buymeacoffee.com

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Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#91

Post by _eht »

patja wrote: post #33

I feel this is unintentionally going to the lowest end of this space with the whole "buy me a coffee" message and brand. I run a site which is 100% monetized through voluntary donations and I would never use language like buy me a beer/buy me a coffee for it. It feels like you are marginalizing your work to the hobby/side-project realm with low expectations. We strive for $40 a year as a target donation from those wh…

From the OSS community if I'm making a public repo anyway I'd be happy to have someone buy me a coffee if they found my code useful.

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#92

Post by WingH »

Starbucks used to have something call "Tweet a Coffee" where you could tweet a coffee to someone, and Starbucks would tweet them a link to a gift card where they could redeem it.

I used it a lot to replace cold emailing and it did lead to a lot of serendipitous online conversations with decision makers. Starbucks have since removed this feature, so I now just email random people Amazon gift cards instead, hoping they'll respond (which they do, with a very good response rate!)

However, for my use case, I would never use this because A) this isn't that serendipitous/random B) There's really no way for me to send a custom message with my email address so I can start a conversation with them, is there?

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#93

Post by merrywhether »

josephsunny wrote: post #2

BuyMeACoffee.com co-founder here. BMC is a friendly way for creators (bloggers, artists, developers) to receive donations from their audience. We have seen the platform used in ways we never imagined. William LeGate, an activist (boycottNRA) used BuyMeACoffee just yesterday to raise $2500 in less than an hour: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/968630079285686273 Check out some 'Buy Me A Coffee' pages: https://…

This post literally came at the right time for me as I was just looking into options for this exact functionality for my side project. Excited to give it a whirl.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/merrywhether

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#94

Post by bojackstorkman »

Too bad caffeine makes me anxious!

Jokes aside, I think this is kinda neat. Platforms like this are becoming more and more necessary for a segment of the population. I have been considering taking up a blog or other writing endeavor, but beyond building an audience, paying to keep a domain or hosting can also be an issue.

Anyway, I am sure you've heard that before. I will likely be a user, and will provide more feedback once I have used it for its intended purpose (it might be awhile).

I do have a question about your policy on "any creator" though. I know a few people that had a bad experience with Patreon/other similar sites because they produced adult content. I do not work in this space, but my understanding has been that this is a pain point for many self-employed content creators.

Anecdotally, I have heard from more than one person that systems like this help protect people (disproportionately women) from exploitation in this industry, by giving one autonomy over their finances without having to contract with a studio or whatnot.

So, is this an issue that has been adressed in designing this platform?

(I know this looks like the ultimate "JUST ASKING FOR A FRIEND!!" post, but I am not in that business, not that anyone should feel ashamed to be.)

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#95

Post by jiojfekjl »

I'm a musician who gives their work away for free. I'm intrigued by this. I don't make a living off my music, but I have a small following that supports me in small ways (5 bucks here, 10 bucks there).

Can you tell me what the difference is between using this and say, using a paypal donation button? If I use your product, aren't I being charged twice, since you take a cut, and so does paypal / stripe?

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#96

Post by jffry »

zyio wrote: post #52
josephsunny wrote: post #2

BuyMeACoffee.com co-founder here. BMC is a friendly way for creators (bloggers, artists, developers) to receive donations from their audience. We have seen the platform used in ways we never imagined. William LeGate, an activist (boycottNRA) used BuyMeACoffee just yesterday to raise $2500 in less than an hour: https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/968630079285686273 Check out some 'Buy Me A Coffee' pages: https://…

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wp-login.php Cheers!

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/humans.txt :)

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#98

Post by jacobevelyn »

josephsunny wrote: post #56
jacobevelyn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome! Here's me: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/JacobEvelyn Small pieces of feedback: - It's not super clear to me what I should put in "About you" vs. "Your story" - I noticed that the "Your story" section gets centered on the page, making bulleted lists look a bit weird (see my page) - I noticed that emoji don't work in the "Your story" section (this may be intentional) In general this looks really neat, nice work…

Thank you, and these are some great points! - 'About you' is more like a small two-liner that'll show right above the payment widget. - You're right. This is a known issue, and we will fix it with the next update. - BMC is emoji-friendly (even for supporter comments). We'll look into this right away. Cheers!

Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#99

Post by jiojfekjl »

patja wrote: post #33

I feel this is unintentionally going to the lowest end of this space with the whole "buy me a coffee" message and brand. I run a site which is 100% monetized through voluntary donations and I would never use language like buy me a beer/buy me a coffee for it. It feels like you are marginalizing your work to the hobby/side-project realm with low expectations. We strive for $40 a year as a target donation from those wh…

Going after the low end can be a good strategy, since the established competition usually ignores that market segment. Speaking as someone who might be in that low end demographic (a musician looking for tips), I like the branding, since it makes donation seem more intimate, more casual than "patron."

Re: Show HN: Buy Me A Coffee – A free, fast and friendly way to receive donations

#100

Post by jjjensen90 »

delgaudm wrote: post #64

I signed up, and it looks good. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BoothJunkie My feedback: I've been using paypal.me, and the ability to change the donation at the URL has been incredibly helpful towards getting patrons to choose an amount that suits them. I suggest $X but they are free to change, and it's super easy. Often patrons up the number and I get more donations. I'm not convinced the multiplier buttons do the sam…

Are you the Mike DelGaudio who contributes to the NoSleep Podcast?! If so, I've listened to your voice acting for hundreds of hours... HN never ceases to amaze me for bringing dialogue from people you would never expect to run in to.

But on topic, I agree with your feedback. I run a volunteer video game project with about 8000 users who are pretty active and also come from a huge variety of economic situations. Right now I don't ask for donations but I've been considering the best way to do it without it in any way appearing to be a fee or charge for the project. I've considered using paypal.me and really like the URL based system for donation amounts. I love the idea of BMC because it targets exactly what I want to express--give something back but you aren't buying a product or special treatment.

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