The competitor of Open Source X and Threads Mastodon will start experimenting with a new way to pump funds: In -application donations. The organization announced on Wednesday that a banner campaign launched in Android and iOS applications, urging users to donate.
Initially, the feature will only appear on those on Mastodon servers operating the non -profit organization itself, Mastodon.Social and mastodon.online. These banners will be easy to reject, says Mastodon and will only prove to be people who have accounts that existed for at least four weeks. The organization promises that it will not constantly push users to give.
Such campaigns can work well for non -profit organizations on a scale. The Wikimedia Foundation, for example, brings the majority His funding by individual donors, including those who donate through pop-up banners occasionally appear in Wikipedia. However Mastodon has a much smaller users base: 8.1 million rMIfire Accounts and fewer than 1 million monthly active users. Still, banners could encourage people who have not sought active ways to contribute now, as it makes the process more seamless as a feature in application.
Mastodon says he will later expand the campaign to the web and, if successful, will make it available in all other mastodon cases. The latter would allow individual server managers to receive immediate support from their users who could help them keep them operating.
As an open, decentralized social media platform, Mastodon faces challenges when it comes to financial support. Unlike Meta and X, which are supported by ads, Mastodon has so far been largely based on donations from users from Patreon. He has also accepted a handful of donations from the funds and foundations that focus on the open source over the years.
In 2023Mastodon increased € 545,000 in total donations, an increase of 65% annually, but the Patreon donor base decreased almost 23% to 7,400. (The 2024 report is not yet out.) This reduction could have prompted it to consider the most aggressive capital concentration tactics, especially as the competition from the post-newcomers, such as the Bluesky start-up by VC.
“We know that money collection can present complexities and questions”, a Mastodon blog declared. “We would like to understand how to do this well with the community. This is not a corporate capital campaign: it is an attempt to secure the future of a more moral and independent social fabric.”
