Keep the Change - An easy way to cheaply contribute to developers and content creators

in donations •  8 years ago  (edited)


Change Cups 

We all have them.  We toss our loose change in there and forget about it until the day comes that we have enough to buy a ham sandwich.

What if we did the same thing with our change here, except instead of going to a ham sandwich, it went to something amazing.

Keep the Change

I'd like to see the option to divert a small portion of my payouts automatically to certain contributors in the community.  At less than a dollar, it's enough that most of us wouldn't even notice, while having the potential to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for causes we're all passionate about.

If 5000 people tipped out at least $.30 a day through this method, we would raise over $500,000!  That's a lot of change!

Imagine if we could have a single account like @null that was somehow managed in a decentralized fashion through the community that could divert significant sums of money to projects that would make a huge difference for Steem's development.  Perhaps witnesses could manage the account until a more decentralized method of money management emerges.

Here's what I think would work:

It could work with every post you make, simply check the box if you would like the an individual or a future community managed account to "keep the change".

When you check the box and hit post, this box pops up before actually posting it.  Here, you confirm that you want to proceed irreversibly with the "keep the change option".  A memo can be added so the user can specify where he would like to see the funds diverted if sent to a community account.  They could also send the change directly to developers or other key people they value on the platform.

It'd also work for any replies you make.  Perhaps with these, since they are generally much lower payouts, we can remove the $1 cap and simply push all change even if the reply is under $1.


I think a simple donation button would be nice, as well.  Maybe have a couple preset options like $1SBD, $5SBD, $25SBD.  A similar popup would appear so you could authorize the transaction.  I think a nice one-click process could drive more money to content creators that aren't getting noticed, without having to take the multi-step process to send them some change.


I love the post promotion idea and I think that these options would work complimentary to this new system.  I think it's important that we divert money to the people in the community who are working hard to build out both Steem and Steemit.


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Great idea!

There should be donation buttons on profiles, posts and comments on Steemit so we can 'tip' at any level and recipients will know what it was for. On Tsu some people gave 'comment cents' for good comments. I'd be happy to give regular donations to projects I value and to charities too. Not earning much yet, but I expect things to ramp out as the site grows.

I can see this working, what is a potential fundraising initiative you had in mind?

I see a lot of hardwork going on at @roelandp's http://steemtools.com

For example, @steve-walschot quit his job to work full time on improving Steem, while providing valuable contributions to our community since he's joined.
http://steempay.io/
Steve is one of many people working to make Steem better and this seems like an easy, mindless way to support people like him.


@picokernel built http://squeek.io and he made a post about a bounty for someone to build out an open source GPU miner for Steem. I only had a few cents, but figured it was worth sending it over anyways. Maybe more would join if they didn't even think about it as they made content. Microtransactions without any fees open up so many possibilities for us to get money where it needs to go in order to make Steem everything it can be.

I really like the donation button, or tip button idea. I also have in mind to do something like this each time I cash out my SBD. I plan to round my own cash-out to the next lower ten dollars and transfer the balance to someone whose posts I've enjoyed here on Steemit.

Go to http://steempay.io and make a button. Here I made on for you :)



Thank @steve-walschot and @cass

Coooooooool!!!

great idea, i'd do it

Excellent idea. I'd participate in this.

Another great idea. They ought to hire you!

I'd cook, clean do anything for these guys and this community! :)