I wrote the following as a Twitter thread first but I think this idea could work for Reddit/Tildes/Mastadon and would love to know what you folks think of it.

Here is how I would monetize a social network that could work for Twitter.

First of all, don’t charge your most valuable users - the power users that create the content for you. Instead focus on the users that get more value from your system - the consumers of the content.

The idea is simple - introduce a small time delay before content gets seen from the time it is published. For example, on Twitter it could be 1 minute. On Reddit it could be 10 minutes.

Paid subscribers would have no delay. Importantly - lift the delay for the users that generate a lot of views.

You can do revenue share with your content creators in proportion to how much time paid subscribers spent on their content.

And you can also identify your most valuable audience - the paid subscribers. This will help prioritize content moderation decisions, identify abuse, and prioritize appeals.

The delay would allow you to prioritize which content needs to be indexed instantly (ie from creators that paid subscribers are following) and which you can process on a best effort basis - saving on production costs.

You can gift subscriptions to your friends and family.

As with many Twitter users, I'm finally at the point where I want to leave and join Mastodon. About a year ago I set up an account after seeing some people on Tildes talk about it, but I found it confusing and ultimately closed the account. I want to give it another go, but I'm a bit confused about all the different instance options, what the practical differences are, and more. Are there any comprehensive getting started guides? Does it matter which instance I join? How did you choose for yourself?