Reduce Plutonium from premium to donation service

I think it's fair for the solo dev to want to make money off of this. While I agree that hiding features behind a paywall leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I can understand for features that use more server resources like streaming 4k/60fps. Maybe a decent compromise here would be to limit plutonium to a few key desirable features (like high bandwidth streaming) and a supporter badge.

I think it's fair for the solo dev to want to make money off of this. While I agree that hiding features behind a paywall leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I can understand for features that use more server resources like streaming 4k/60fps. Maybe a decent compromise here would be to limit plutonium to a few key desirable features (like high bandwidth streaming) and a supporter badge.

It's understandable that a compromise would be made if it were to be reduced in scope, I think that this would be agreeable as a proposal to most of my friends for them to consider the platform.

Problem / motivation

Firstly, I must say that I am impressed with the project already, however, as a user I've already been turned away by one glaring part of the application: Plutonium Now I understand the need for funding for a project and aiding the developer, and donations to open-source projects are a wonderful thing I can appreciate (and have done myself). Currently, a friend group of mine are looking for a Discord alternative to move our chat group to. At this time, I don't think I will be using Fluxer or recommending it to my friends, as Plutonium is the behavior we've seen from Nitro in Discord that has pushed us away from using it. For example, .gif profile pictures and profile banners only accessible for premium members, or lower streaming quality for free members, global sticker access is premium only, etc. These restrictions for free clients is the reason why we're trying to leave Discord as a platform. Though it may be enticing to implement premium only features or restrictions, people are willing to donate to causes they appreciate without forcing their hand. Whether Plutonium is reduced in scope or not, good luck with development! I tend to only open issues if I feel passionately about a project, and I do wish to see this succeed and form into an application I and my friends would like to use one day.

Proposed solution

Without entirely removing Plutonium as a concept, the payment could instead be a donation to the developer. Zorin OS has had success with this method by offering a premium version that is intrinsically the same OS but with more pre-installed applications and some extra user themes. Perhaps something similar could be implemented by gifting donators premium specific themes, profile icon/banner borders, chat icons (crown floating by the user's name). In essence, just more fluff for donators to show off they'd contributed to the project, and that's enough for many people to aid your project.

Alternatives considered

• Option A: Removal of Plutonium entirely - Of course I've considered this, as I'd rather Plutonium wasn't around at all in Fluxer, but I believed my proposed solution to be more acceptable for all parties.

Impact

Small (localized, low risk)

Compatibility

• [ ] This might be a breaking change (behavior/API).[ ] This introduces a new dependency.

Scope / implementation notes

No response

Contribution

• [ ] I'm willing to open a PR for this (after maintainer alignment).[ ] I can help test/verify a PR for this.

I don't think that's a good idea, either that or the alternative option A. Not only do i think that Fluxer Plutonium with it's 5 euros a month is pretty reasonable, but i think people don't understand that a service like that, that has running costs for hosting and getting traffic for voice and video chat, can sustain itself on one-time donations. That's simply not realistic.

I dont think there's any reason to still have this issue open? we're fighting with ghosts, the platform has so much to still implement atm there are also the lifetime users (25 last time i checked) who paid 300 usd, they've supported the platform in one go equivalent to 1500 users subscribing for plutonium in a month, those are the people that believe wholeheartedly on the project, and the presented suggestion would instantly signal that the platform will disrespect them to cater to general users hampus has stated that if he finds a way to sustain the development and the free instances plutonium will be removed. it only exists to create as little friction as possible, alternatives may arise for monetization but you can already self host it if that's your tea! i want to believe more in the developer that has had the dedication of 5 years to privately dev this slowly and that has fount a way to monetize this and make the platform sustainable than someone that came here to assume how things work and presented their methods as the better ones without sustainable insight on the project id recommend reading his views on https://www.producthunt.com/products/fluxer?embed=true and on the main fluxer server he's really cool and has INSANE dedication the response above was a bit hostile for my liking (though if not for the phrasing i do agree), but growth comes with a search of understanding, this is not a multi million company like discord, this is just: guy (a really competent one!) if you dont like how stuff works you can always contribute! but i understand that saying that is frustrating for a general user, but i hope you understand why dropping suggestions that are worded as if you knew better than the people close to this project has had to even keep this thing going has been meet with hostility at the moment it isnt realistic, but it is working to be sustainable to not need plutonium in the future

As long as you can use all the premium features on your private selfhosted instance, without needing to pay for plutonium, i can't see the issue here. This should be closed for now.

I dont think there's any reason to still have this issue open? we're fighting with ghosts, the platform has so much to still implement atm there are also the lifetime users (25 last time i checked) who paid 300 usd, they've supported the platform in one go equivalent to 1500 users subscribing for plutonium in a month, those are the people that believe wholeheartedly on the project, and the presented suggestion would instantly signal that the platform will disrespect them to cater to general users hampus has stated that if he finds a way to sustain the development and the free instances plutonium will be removed. it only exists to create as little friction as possible, alternatives may arise for monetization but you can already self host it if that's your tea! i want to believe more in the developer that has had the dedication of 5 years to privately dev this slowly and that has fount a way to monetize this and make the platform sustainable than someone that came here to assume how things work and presented their methods as the better ones without sustainable insight on the project id recommend reading his views on https://www.producthunt.com/products/fluxer?embed=true and on the main fluxer server he's really cool and has INSANE dedication the response above was a bit hostile for my liking (though if not for the phrasing i do agree), but growth comes with a search of understanding, this is not a multi million company like discord, this is just: guy (a really competent one!) if you dont like how stuff works you can always contribute! but i understand that saying that is frustrating for a general user, but i hope you understand why dropping suggestions that are worded as if you knew better than the people close to this project has had to even keep this thing going has been meet with hostility at the moment it isnt realistic, but it is working to be sustainable to not need plutonium in the future

It sounds a bit hostile because it absolutely is. I am honestly sick of entitled people that think everything should be free and disrespect (as you well put it) years of dedication by the dev. If we would be talking about fundamentally important features, lets say the ability to go in voice chat, sure that should be free. But taking the time and writing a long ass "issue" on Github because they cry about not having animated banners for free and saying they "would bring so many friends if it only everything was free", implying it should be listened to them otherwise "I'll keep all my friends away" is the most disrespectful sh*t I've read in a long time. I agree. This issue should be closed as it is none.

Where were you all a month ago actually contributing to issues for this project? Just because Discord had their recent announcement, suddenly you all appear like bots to swarm my issue within minutes of each other? I've contributed to issues you can see above this one in earnest, brigaiding my issue and calling for it to be closed is entitlement.

Hey all, I believe OP had the best intentions here, because I hadn't really advertised the fact that self-hosted instances are a thing nor did I have documentation for it, at the time OP posted this. I've been doing the work to make the codebase ready for self-hosting with very minimal requirements through a huge refactor for the past month. This is highly unfortunate. The context for why a lot of people are discovering the platform now, even though I haven't announced or released the next big update yet, is because it spread like wildfire through word of mouth from Bluesky and onto other places on the internet, following "Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month" (The Verge). A big update is coming soon that will make self-hosting documented and readily available to everyone, where you get to decide how limits are set on your instance, with the default being that the Plutonium subscription doesn't exist and everyone gets the same limits and unlocked features that Plutonium users get on the hosted Fluxer.app instance. I'm open to feedback around things like these for the Fluxer.app instance, however, but I decided to start out very close to Discord Nitro in how the pricing was structured such that I could gain goodwill by making some features free when I can subsidise it by other revenue streams (businesses paying for isolated Fluxer instances as a SaaS offering, commercial licensing of the codebase, donations from the FOSS community, and potentially creator monetisation on the Fluxer.app instance down the line). Fluxer absolutely wants to give you full freedom, and I've tried to make improvements where I could over Discord's Nitro offering for the hosted instance that I provide (which isn't free to provide). There are more ideas floating around to make the free tier more powerful to get you a taste of freedom without jeopardising my ability to monetise the instance to continue on the fully FOSS development of this platform and continue prioritising self-hosting. TL;DR: Things may change as other revenue streams emerge, but I've chosen a defensive approach for now so that I can instead make some things more generous down the line on the hosted instance of Fluxer if I know this works out. I'm going to be closing this issue as not planned for this reason, which I hope you can understand and I hope the self-hosting aspect is something you'd like to see as well, and I'll continue working on this big update. For clarity, here's the pending blog post that I haven't yet shared widely because the update isn't live yet, along with the roadmap and pending release notes:

• https://blog.fluxer.app/how-i-built-fluxer-a-discord-like-chat-app/
• https://blog.fluxer.app/roadmap-2026/
• https://blog.fluxer.app/p/9da0129f-ae60-424b-931d-963f7c3484a0/

Thanks!