The intent here is to make becoming a subscriber worthwhile. I'm aware that you can get things like VPSes or shell accounts (i.e. SDF) for less than we are offering, but consider this as a throwin for helping support the site. Image hosting will be useful for instance for user-created content in journals (which is slated site upgrade).
This brings us to a point I don't really want to bring up (but is necessary). Obviously, we're going to need to accept payment in some method. We're already planning to accept PayPal since that support is already baked into slashcode, and most people are at least familiar with it. However, I do know our community is almost certainly going to have issues if PayPal is the only accepted merchant. As such, I'm willing to look at basically any company recommend by the community to process payments (as well as some of the larger "generic" ones like Google Wallet). With luck, we will be able to accept payment from 3-4 various payment processors so the community has their pick of who they are willing to use.
Unfortunately, at this time, we are not accepting cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin. This isn't because of technical reasons; we could likely hook into Coinbase or other services relatively easy. The problem is BitCoin, as defined by the IRS, is not currency; it is considered property and investments, and thus is subject to capital gains taxes. It is not clear if we would be liable for it, or if it would be handled via the processor. This is a question we need to forward to a CPA, but I do not expect an answer quickly, as ink on the regulations is still wet. We hope to be able to accept cryptocurrencies in the near future, although we may have to charge a premium to offset any additional tax burdens this places on us. We will be investigating as one of our first priorities when dealing with setting up the finances side of SoylentNews.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 17 2014, @03:20PM
Yet going the other way I was hoping that "not much money" and any editor having veto power means no ethical / moral issues if they veto outright spam. High bar of entry might mean lots of dough might mean some difficult choices balancing finance and content.
I am a little concerned about the veto power being too broad. Its pretty easy to define an awful sponsored article, like my example of a mortgage broker advertisement. But what if I pay $10 to promote a brand new hobbyist RF board which I have no connection to other than I'm probably going to buy a couple for ham radio purposes, think of the "hack RF" SDR project as an example. That's a real corner case if one editor would post it but another hates Fing RF/analog EEs and would veto it. Maybe ncommander would have to have sole permit/veto rights. Or one individual, anyway. I would not suggest this for articles where time is of the essence, so space probe launches and product release blitzes are probably categorically excluded.
There might be problems defining these topics as news. You suckers are going to have to sit thru my $10 rant about how Ham Radio contesting is fun. Well, that's not really news even if its good fundraising. But if I warped my $10 rant into "The August 2014 microwave contest is in a couple weeks and BTW ham radio contesting is really fun because (insert rant here)"...
I would agree there probably needs to be a limit. A rotation of donors? I pay $10 and unless there's a really good reason I go to the end of the pack and there's only one posted per day.
For fun you could even post the daily sponsored at at 3pm. Exactly 3pm every day. I'd probably visit at 3:05pm every day just for the spectacle of it. Thats an interesting traffic management concept. Maybe it should be right before lunch hour. I donno.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 17 2014, @04:52PM
Love the idea about a certain time. I can look for past ones easy. Maybe tag them with a background color.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 17 2014, @09:52PM
"Maybe tag them with a background color."
Good idea, pale green instead of white background. Color of money. Donno what the color of bitcoin is, but this will do in the meantime.