Show HN: Non.io, a Reddit-like platform Ive been working on for the last 4 years

Maybe there could be an low-effort area where you don't get paid.

I get the site is targeting creators, but I also get the impression that it is about general discussions etc? As a user it feels weird to give equal money to a discussion as someones awesome multi-month project, especially since there will probably be more discussions than awesome multi-month projects.

I really like the lurk for free but pay to participate approach. Getting paid however feels like a possible distraction that might just overcomplicate things, both technical and moderation+incentives. I don't think most people would be doing it for the money (and for most people it would at best be pocket change anyway). Getting rid of ads is the killer-feature that hopefully builds a good community, I guess/hope.

Getting people to enter their credit cards is probably harder than the actual amount, so the appeal of getting the money back is still red in the balance-sheet for pocket-change amounts.

My biggest gripe is that payments kills anonymity (which some might see as a big thing).

The average "Reddit" business is pretty odd; they want:

* Paying subscribers _and_ advertising revenue

* Free content: posts & comments

* Free moderation: voting & ToS enforcement

* The ability to monopolize said content

* Contributors to continue to pour millions of man-hours to make content for the site and never ask for anything like ad-free viewing, an enjoyable user-experience, tooling, etc.

Social platforms present a difficult balance between the users, contributors, moderators, and business - all within a very hostile internet (in terms of security, spam, etc).

For payment to happen, users do demand significant value to be parted from their $. In Reddit's case, the 3rd party apps are strongly desired because the 1st party app does not meet their needs (users _pay_ for these apps!). Reddit doesn't want to compete on UX, as they're demonstrably bad at it; partially due to lack of skill and due to mismatched incentives.

It seems like they incorrectly assume that they own the community, rather than the other way around. Reddit's primary value is in the content they are _given_ in exchange for hosting & tools - both of which are have significant downward cost pressure (which _should_ trend towards free, given a large enough community).

Reddit is trying to switch their customers from users to advertisers in order to make a profit, which is difficult after years of _generally_ serving users. It is bait and switch at it's finest and most egregious.

It's not easy, and the value of an expert UX designer really shines when walking the tight-rope between informing and annoying your users.

Also, consider investing in reliable A/B testing infrastructure if you haven't already. One of the biggest mistakes I've seen is trying to grow a product while driving half-blind based on napkin sql queries as metrics. Understand who is using the site, how often, when they are experiencing errors, and which types of changes actually encourage growth KPIs - but be careful, loading up the site with 3rd party trackers and intrusive js will introduce bugs and kill site performance - another balancing act hehe.

I don't know what payment processor you're using but I have to assume it'd fall prey to the same issues that onlyfans and others had.

What about keeping objectively terrible content off the platform? I won't name it but we all know what I'm talking about.

I think spelling out API usage from the get-go would be a good idea.