GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#11

Post by birk » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 2:48 PM UTC

cowfish wrote: post #7

birk wrote: post #2

Hey HN, Birk from Polar here. We're building a platform for open source developers offering better funding & community tools. We're building it open source too: https://github.com/polarsource/polar Here to answer any questions you might have. You can read more about this on our own Polar page for Polar: https://polar.sh/polarsource/posts/github-supports-polar-in-...

Are you planning to add support for non-Western countries?

We're building on Stripe Connect with the following countries supported for payouts today: https://docs.polar.sh/faq/maintainers/#which-countries-are-s...

Will expand as we can with Stripe. Long-term, in order to expand truly world-wide, I think we'll need to integrate support for other payment providers too. Definitely something we want. Just a question of short-term capabilities & main priority being to reach a v1 that truly makes a dent in open source funding. Expanding markets, platforms and more once we have.

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#12

Post by birk » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 2:51 PM UTC

MapleWalnut wrote: post #9

I like that polar supports funding specific issues or pull requests. Seems like a nice way to help fund a project while also helping prioritize issues you care about.

Thank you! Important callout: We designed issue funding for maintainers & contributors vs. bounty hunters. We don't believe in traditional bounties. More on this here: https://polar.sh/polarsource/posts/introducing-rewards

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#13

Post by hobofan » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 2:59 PM UTC

birk wrote: post #8

hobofan wrote: post #6

Previous discussion when they launched 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36722702

Just to help highlight some big updates since: - Posts & newsletter support to build direct relationship with your community - Subscriptions to offer sustainable & recurring funding - Built-in subscription benefits: Premium posts, Discord invites, Automate sponsor logos in README/site/docs, access to private GitHub repo(s) - Rewards: Split issue funding with contributors - Merchant of record & handling VAT for the ab…

That looks like quite an impressive output in that time!

It appears that there is now more of focus on subscriptions with tiered private content rather than the "funded backlog" mechanic highlighted in the announcement blog post, which I think is a good choice.

I think that you can now act as a merchant of record is overall the biggest deal for me. The shaky legal situation of Github Sponsors once you offer rewards was always the show-stopper for not signing up with Github Sponsors for me. In case I pick up some significant open-source work again, I'll likely sign up with you! :)

P.S.: You have to do double-newlines if you want your list to render correctly.

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#14

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:01 PM UTC

birk wrote: post #11

cowfish wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you planning to add support for non-Western countries?

We're building on Stripe Connect with the following countries supported for payouts today: https://docs.polar.sh/faq/maintainers/#which-countries-are-s... Will expand as we can with Stripe. Long-term, in order to expand truly world-wide, I think we'll need to integrate support for other payment providers too. Definitely something we want. Just a question of short-term capabilities & main priority being to reach a v1…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#15

Post by birk » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:11 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #13

birk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to help highlight some big updates since: - Posts & newsletter support to build direct relationship with your community - Subscriptions to offer sustainable & recurring funding - Built-in subscription benefits: Premium posts, Discord invites, Automate sponsor logos in README/site/docs, access to private GitHub repo(s) - Rewards: Split issue funding with contributors - Merchant of record & handling VAT for the ab…

That looks like quite an impressive output in that time! It appears that there is now more of focus on subscriptions with tiered private content rather than the "funded backlog" mechanic highlighted in the announcement blog post, which I think is a good choice. I think that you can now act as a merchant of record is overall the biggest deal for me. The shaky legal situation of Github Sponsors once you offer rewards w…

Thank you! Yes, we've shipped most of the features mentioned as aspirations in that original post now. We'll soon share an updated one on the big goals for 2024 :)

Agree. I love our issue funding feature (now with contributor rewards too), but it was always part of a larger suite of funding tools we wanted to offer & now can. Getting recurring funding/income (subscriptions) is definitely crucial.

Yes, completely agree re: merchant of record. I've chatted with hundreds of open source maintainers and this has been a big pain point & concern for many. So we wanted to address it. As a platform, we can work with tax professionals & lawyers to help solve this once vs. N times for each maintainer standalone (an impossible burden).

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#16

Post by KomoD » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:16 PM UTC

I'm curious what the main differences are compared to all the other platforms

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#17

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:20 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#18

Post by ChrisArchitect » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:20 PM UTC

birk wrote: post #2

Hey HN, Birk from Polar here. We're building a platform for open source developers offering better funding & community tools. We're building it open source too: https://github.com/polarsource/polar Here to answer any questions you might have. You can read more about this on our own Polar page for Polar: https://polar.sh/polarsource/posts/github-supports-polar-in-...

One week from community suggestions to production? Pretty good!

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#19

Post by SushiHippie » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:22 PM UTC

(kind of offtopic)

I see these tutorial videos where it zooms in out to the cursor relatively often and I find them really dizzying/distracting, am I alone with that or what do others think about this?

Re: GitHub now officially supports polar.sh as a funding platform

#20

Post by nottorp » Thu, Feb 15, 2024, 3:40 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #13

birk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to help highlight some big updates since: - Posts & newsletter support to build direct relationship with your community - Subscriptions to offer sustainable & recurring funding - Built-in subscription benefits: Premium posts, Discord invites, Automate sponsor logos in README/site/docs, access to private GitHub repo(s) - Rewards: Split issue funding with contributors - Merchant of record & handling VAT for the ab…

That looks like quite an impressive output in that time! It appears that there is now more of focus on subscriptions with tiered private content rather than the "funded backlog" mechanic highlighted in the announcement blog post, which I think is a good choice. I think that you can now act as a merchant of record is overall the biggest deal for me. The shaky legal situation of Github Sponsors once you offer rewards w…

So it's another Patreon but for open source exclusively?

Every time I feel like donating to something I get pushed into a subscription and I end up donating... zero.

Last one was Mozilla. Please make it recurring! Please make it recurring! No thank you.