"Radon" or "Radium": a subscription tier that is lighter than Plutonium

Problem is that user doesn't use voice chat or streaming or other infrastructure

i think this is a compelling argument why discriminators should not be gated behind plutonium at all. it's not something that costs anything to provide. so why charge for it? Root is another chat app like Fluxer and Discord. with their equivalent to Plutonium they make this promise:

purely cosmetic touches [...] are free today and always will be. We're never putting self-expression behind a paywall. [...] We charge for things that cost us real money to provide, like HD streaming, that deliver genuine value beyond decoration, [...].

i think that ultimately, if accommodating users who want a discriminator but no plutonium is desired, it should only ever be under this principle. the idea of having several different subscriptions or purchase options in the app feels inherently dangerous, because it easily leads to the perception that Fluxer is predatorily monitized. almost nothing can make that worth the risk. Signal usernames have a discriminator but they're not monetized at all. you have to pick some digits, and if they're available, they're yours to keep! --- one thing i always liked about discord was that its usernames were this freeform thing where your desired name was never "taken". the discriminator would just be different. i actually think allowing discriminator customization kinda goes against that? because if you can choose your discriminator, then your desired discriminator can be taken, so now your desired full username can be taken... so you're back at the problem that discriminators were invented to solve. why have discriminators at all if they're not arbitrary for everyone?