Tiping and "Support Me" culture on the indie web

[Melooon]

I though it was a good idea to have a discussion about peoples feelings on tipping and "support me" requests on the indie web and web revival sites.

I suppose for some back story; I remember before Neocities had a tip button, and back then the idea of putting a tip button or a link to a ko-fi or patreon page on your homepage would have been an anathema; it would have been a really weird thing to do; no one ever said it, but it just felt like an unspoken rule about not selling out to the corruptions of the wider web (I remember linking to my main site from GifyPet and even feeling like a back-link was too much promo)

That's very different compared to today, and that's normal, things do change as they get more popular, and as the indie web has grown in popularity, a lot of the creator-culture of requesting support and tips has started to creep in; it's now essentially totally acceptable to not only accept tips, but to even let people pay you to link to their site.

I'm not in any position to judge, In a round about way, I add links for donations on my town map (since you can buy a plot and have a link on it), and I've accepted tips for a long time now. However I suppose I've always felt I've done it with a sense of parody, it was never meant to be taken seriously or earn actual money, and that's what has perhaps changed over the years; I think people take the idea of tips more seriously these days, and that's what has prompted me to make this thread.

In some cases, I think a request for a tip is very justified, particularly on a site or service like a forum or an info archive that needs constant work and updates, however there are limits, and there are bounds, and I'd like to know what those are. The Yesterweb for example was a big community in 2021 that refused to accept any tips or support because they felt it created an ethical issue for them. Personally, I think a modest number of tips are fine, but equally I don't like the idea people starting homepages because they think they can make a side hustle out of it; partly that harms homepages, and also it will prob leave them disappointed when it does not work

I'm interested in hearing what the mood is, what do you think about tipping and "support me" culture on the indie web? Do you accept tips? Have you received many? Where do you draw the line between what's ok and what's not? 

[sunnyp4rk]

I personally don't mind as long as it's just a button that isn't the main focus of the site. Domains and servers cost money, so I don't blame people for having a donate button... however, if its the main focus of a page, then that's where I'd have a problem with it.

[squidlifecrisis]

I'm interested in hearing what the mood is, what do you think about tipping and "support me" culture on the indie web? Do you accept tips? Have you received many? Where do you draw the line between what's ok and what's not. 

Honestly... I ignore it. not worth sending my credit card data to toss someone pocket change.

I made a kofi awhile back to sell prints and pdfs, and for some reason, I got a couple of tips with no orders. I would SO much prefer a comment about why they liked my art enough to donate. two cents is worth more than two bucks >_>

I don't think less of anyone for asking, though. everyone has a different financial situation.

[april]

I personally do not like tip or tipping culture at all it inspires others to take the next logical step to premium features,
paywalls and advertisements, as so much of the modern web has become bloated with. A majority of indie websites get by perfectly fine without tips especially sites hosted on free platforms such as neocities and nekoweb. I don't accept tips,
I've never received money.

[Trench_Man]

I'm not against the idea of support me culture so long as such a request remains unintrusive and non-guilt trippy

I am fully aware that maintaining things on the web can be expensive especially if you want to run something without ads, so I hold no ill opinions towards such behavior as long as it doesn't impact my navigation or experience using a site

[IndigoGolem]

I think if i ever set up something like this for my own site, i would try to find a way to limit the total tips to an amount equal to what my site costs me every month. Which is... like $11 USA.

I've never been bothered by it on someone's personal site. It's never been intrusive enough for that, at least that i've seen. But i can understand the concern that it could grow to be too much of what a site is about, or lead to people making blogs just for the money.

Like a lot of things a website can do, it has potential for harm and for good. Which feels like i'm just avoiding giving a real answer, but that is how i feel about it. Fine as long as people are responsible about it.

[ABlueRose]

For community driven projects I think it's great. ArchiveOfOurOwn runs purely on donations, which means there's no ads, and users don't have to worry about huge changes that no one wants happening since there's no traditional investors trying to ruin things to get more money.

For individual websites, I don't know. If it's unobtrusive, then I don't mind. If someone wants others to be able to support their indie projects, then cool. If they get aggressive about it, or it feels like they're getting "corporate" then it kind of stinks in my opinion 

I haven't come across any that were obtrusive though, so I'm going purely theoretical there and haven't thought about it until now

[clownvomitz]

I tend to lean towards indifference for the most part. I agree with the consensus that web projects that require funding to properly maintain their services makes sense, and technically no one is forcing you to push that button and send people cash. In a way I can't necessarily blame people, consider the economical climate in the US among other places, though on the other hand half of the reason why I enjoy the indie web is the free and collaborative nature of it all. But people be struggling and I get it.

Though I have seen some sites, in my opinion, use guilt tripping to try and get tips from others, which I find quite annoying. The only time I've ever considered giving money to someone was if they provided some kind of script, widget, template, or service that would actually help me in the long run with my website, not because (excuse my bluntness here) they talk about how much life sucks and whatnot. As long as the "Support Me" button isn't super intrusive, I generally just scroll on by, but the thought of "content creator culture"/"side hustles" seeping into the indie web makes me cringe.

I personally don't accept tips, and I don't think I ever will since I don't provide such services that I believe warrant being paid for. At the end of the day, I keep my site up as a passion project and labor of love, not as a source of income.

[ribose]

i think i started using neocities in earnest after the tip button got added, but i've still noticed the shift in attitude around tipping that you're describing, Melon. tip buttons have gotten a lot more common since 2022! i have one, but i still haven't figured out how i feel about it, so i'm very curious to hear everyone's opinions.

i made a ko-fi account in sept 2024, only after my partner and i had been discussing it for a few months. he encouraged me to accept tips, but i felt like it would be very weird to do. for context, he's an artist that's supported by patreon/commissions/tips, so in his online circles it's very normal to receive tips for the stuff you make. he would say things like "you're spending dozens of hours every week making things for others to enjoy; why won't you let people give you money for it?" and i would say something like "why should anyone give me money for the things i do for my own enjoyment??" eventually he convinced me to give it a try, and i still have the account. one of the compromises that came from our discussions is that i'll only link to it from pages where i'm offering visitors something, so it's only on the "webcrafting supplies" section of my site... but that feels like a really blurry and arbitrary line. do those pages have more value than the other ones i've made? have i split my site between pages i make for myself and pages i make for other people? i don't know! would i feel differently if someone tipped me $1,000,000? maybe!

Have you received many?

i'll be exact! i've received 147 USD in tips. after fees, that's 138.72 in my account. i just added up how much i've spent on hosting and my domain name since i started and it's 264 USD. so in total my website has earned me -$125.24 USD. not very lucrative! my site gets more attention than i know how to handle, and i'm still in the negatives, so i imagine that it would be very difficult to make enough money to support yourself from a personal homepage.

but making money was not the point of the tip jar for me. i relate a lot to what IndigoGolem said above; i feel strongly that i wouldn't want to receive any more than what i'm spending to keep my site online. on my ko-fi page, i set a visible goal showing what i pay for my hosting and domain each year, and i reset it at the start of the year whether the goal is met or not. the first year, it was! last year, it was not. if i got more than a tip or two beyond that goal number, i would disable the page for the rest of the year. that's one of the lines i draw to keep my website firmly in the realm of "things i do for fun" instead of "things i do for money".

one thing i don't want to compromise is peer relationships. i'm okay with the "buy me a coffee" model because, if we were together offline, someone could buy me a coffee or i could buy them a coffee and it wouldn't introduce any imbalance to the relationship. low dollar amounts, no strings attached! but if someone were to give me money every month... what does that mean for our relationship? do i owe them something? are they my boss? with the monthly patron model, can the two individuals still be peers, or are theya now a performer and an audience member? that's not what i want from my site or the people who visit it.

"no strings attached" is another line i don't want to cross. my site is mine! i don't think there's any amount of money someone could pay me to link to something i didn't want to link to, even if it was small and tucked away in some random corner of my site.

[mrparker]

I'd much rather give money where I see fit than being paywalled or my only option being a Patreon or something like that honestly.

I don't see anything wrong with a button existing on a website.

[bugwatcher]

i actually mostly use ko-fi for other transactions besides tipping (i believe i've not gotten actual tips before), i only linked it to my page because i have the account already, but also because of this tipping culture i've seen on other websites, so the change in how tipping is viewed is interesting to me. ive always thought of it of some people's way to show appreciation to a site. of course, there's many other ways to show appreciation - sharing with friends, commenting your thoughts, etc, everyone has their different ways. i have tossed a few bucks to creators i particularly like myself.

to echo others opinions on sites that offer services or host things, i agree tips are a good way to keep those sites up and keep them free for everyone. as for independent sites, i'm also pretty neutral on it. i never found myself too bothered by a tip button here or there. i tend to tip webmasters with content like free art or games, though.

the view on creating as a side hustle with this tipping culture is interesting to me. owning a couple websites is actually a liability to me, especially since i only added my tip link recently only to my personal site, but i never minded that too much. paying for these sites is like paying for a netflix subscription to me... er, not sure what makes a better comparison. it definitely does sound concerning if creators are starting to be more intrusive about tipping or locking their content behind paywalls, but i haven't seen that happen with independent webmasters myself yet.

[poesu]

As a relatively poor person, I'd very much make use of donations, however small.

I've yet to witness tip buttons being intrusive on the indie web. But that's also why I think this thread is important; we need to stay mindful of these bad practices because they do creep in if we drop our guard.

Advertising other indie projects that you actually believe in is fine in my book, if it's done in a fun way like Melon Town, i.e. an ad is a bonus rather than the point.

That said, the issue of paywalls was brought up. I think this is what truly defeats the purpose of the indie web — being open, fun, and everything-that-corporations-are-not. Walled gardens are detrimental to the state of the internet overall, and we're aiming for the betterment of the internet, not worsening.

Years ago I've thought of paid tiers on Patreon as an artist to "encourage" people to support me. I ended up offering "support me if you like my output," which I don't think is a bad thing. It doesn't hurt anything nor goes against the principles of the indie web, I think. Free and open web doesn't mean it's some post-capitalist utopia, sadly (this utopia can't be achieved if it's not there offline first).

Some people do try to earn a living by having a blog, but I don't think they even know about the indie web movement. They have Substacks and Mediums, not Neocities and Bearblogs. I don't think anyone actually in the movement has making a living as a primary (let alone sole) motivation to build a website or have a delusion that that they can do that in the first place.

I guess my conclusion is that tipping is fine as long as it's not means to an end.

[chilblands]

In relation to webservices, I am in support to keep it going as long as possible. For personal websites, I am indifferent. I don't see anything wrong with tipping! I believe people tip for a reason- to support their favourite creatives and encourage them to keep going. Where I do see a problem is emotional coercion and guilt tripping for money.

Independent websites like Wiki, Neoctities and even MelonForum, I do not mind having a explicit tip or support button to keep the websites going. It is the small fishes that get eaten after all and I think they should be nurtured and fed.

For personal websites (not a business website or a corporate website) in my opinion something akin to a hobby, I am indifferent. Where is the line between a hobby and a side hustle? Capitalism have normalised "hustling" instead of just enjoying the process. Of course you can earn a small amount of money for doing something you love, but not everything need to be monetised.

I do not judge anyone for having a tip button because I do not know their financial circumstances. However, expecting a livable income from "tips", in my opinion, is an Americanised view (the land of late-stage capitalism). For example, in the U.S tips ARE PART of the wage, whereas in every other country, tips is extra pocket-money IN ADDITION to wage. Tips should be something extra to support a service.

I personally don't have tips or Kofi because I hate PayPal. I also feel really guilty to accept tips in person as someone in customer service. It is an indescribable feeling when a stranger personally give you a big note by hand. It is also something online tipping culture is missing: human and money recognition. Some people think paying by cash vs credit card is different because you can physically see and hold money. Whereas you just tap or swipe your card and nothing physically change. When someone tip online, you no longer see or associate a real person's face behind the screen giving you physical money. Just something to perhaps visualise 

I will not judge anyone for requesting tips... if it's a request not a demand.

[ValyceNegative]

The discourse of "making money via the Net" is as old as the Net itself, and I think it's best to describe it as multifaceted rather than being one linear slippery slope one can roll down onto. There's a lot of different ways to recieve money, a lot of different reasons, and proceedings can go to many different causes. No two transactions are the same.

Therefore, imagining tipping culture to be a "slippery slope" towards big corpo greed is a bit too harsh: I doubt an individual asking for tips on the indie web makes the same amount or can be as invasive as the three usual mainstream sites trying to syphon money out of your pocket by packaging normal functionalities as "premium features" (and having the gall to say that the purchase must be done over and over each month!).

However, if you see donation buttons being ever more present on Neocities something may be shifting for sure. I'm willing to believe it's because more and more creatives are joining the indie web to use as a gallery instead of social media, and since they are already used to add their donation links in the bio, they bring this habit over by adding the button on the site.

The vast majority of times donation proceedings go to cover hosting/server costs (I know Neocities is mostly free, but maybe more webmasters are opting for the paid version, or deciding to move over to paid hosting services). I doubt people put it there thinking they can make a monthly wage just with that single button. So by itself, it's harmless. I have also yet to find a site (be it from the old web or the revival) that plasters donation requests all over, so people are also being discreet about it.

While not being used to tipping culture especially offline (I'm not from the States, here it's totally missing), as a freelance artist, I indeed make money via the web and some overseas customers have asked me how I feel about recieving tips. So I have somewhat adapted for that kind of interaction.
Rather than having a donation button, I have a text link which states that yeah, people can tip if they want to, but even better they can either ask for a commission or buy merch/comicbooks from my shop. I'd much rather recieve money because I'm doing my job, and I feel much more accomplished if people who want to support me are also getting art they wanted in return.

So I'd say while there's no harm in having just a button, there's also an alternative that makes donations feel less like panhandling and more like offering a service. You too have a shop onsite which links to your Ko-fi, Melon. I'd say that's much more visible than a donation button, but at the same time very fair and rewarding for both sides of the transaction :)