zlacker

On the surface I like this idea, but this makes it harder for participants from poorer countries from, well, participating. For some countries this is more than a week of the average wage!

>>joeldo+(OP)
Price can vary by market. Many companies already do this both for products and services, as well as subscriptions.

>>andsoi+D4
I guess you haven't heard of a VPN?

>>midori+89
You can require address as part of credit card validation.

>>andsoi+D4
But once you throw a VPN into the mix, it's not so simple [1] [2]. It then becomes a game of whack-a-mole where you have to obscure how pricing parity is done [3].

1: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1600232199243984897

2: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1600246753348882432

3: https://twitter.com/dannypostmaa/status/1600372062958538752

>>andsoi+Z9
So only people with credit cards are allowed to use the forum? That shuts out a lot of people, especially in places where credit cards aren't used.

>>ayewo+oa
I think the goal here is not money, but making it enough of a hassle that spammers wouldn't bother.

So if someone from US actually wants to go through the trouble to save $3, well, at least they're unlikely to be a bot.

>>midori+89
I guess you haven't considered making a list of IPs VPNs use as an intern project to setup over the winter

>>joeldo+(OP)
It's difficult to balance; unfortunately from experience in moderating, the poorer countries with a large anglo internet presence also tend to be the biggest sources of spam (not so much low-effort trolling, Americans do that wayyy more).

You could to some extent make an argument that gatekeeping poorer economies is one way to prevent those bots from signing up. It's not one I necessarily agree with, but it is one way to mitigate the spam.

My solution would probably be to permit users from poorer countries to request a signup from someone else at a discount appropriate to their economy using an invite chain. That way you can still offer a fair way for users from poor economies to engage, whilst allowing for easy banning of spambots simply by treebanning the original inviter if you get the spam issue.

>>joeldo+(OP)
If someone is living on $40/month, I'm pretty sure they will have other things to sort out before worrying about their inability to participate in discussions online.

>>midori+7e
You’re right that credit cards are not a universal MOP (method of payment). Other options include debit cards, or systems like iDEAL, PayPal, etc.

>>andsoi+wO2
Right, and those completely vary from country to country. Trying to get one website to support the common authenticated payment systems worldwide is basically impossible unless that website is Google.com.