Suggestion I would like to add is setup a shop like Dev.to use. Both Merch for hashnode but also random stuff for developers. Stickers, cups, sweatshirt, nerdy stuff. Check out redbubble for inspiration.

I think for $24/yr, it's worth supporting the community you've created. The only suggestion I'd like to give is for the blogs to reflect the user more; allowing us to post personal tips/rants/etc. without the requirement of it being a public post on Hashnode.

Blogs are personal. A company can use it for branding, but in most cases, it's just seen as an ad in this case. However, when someone contributes to a community, a blog can be the center point of who they are and what they're capable of doing... without pulling punches. Although community posts are fairly indicative of that, the blogs should act as the door to a much more concentrated and direct personality - and the curator of that blog should never feel as if they're being hindered in sharing more than what would be a typical story or question.

I would recommend taking the "Story" model and expanding it, by offering something with a much more personal touch, with permission to manage comments, etc.

I originally played with it when you first launched the blog for us to test, and I'll be examining the entire system - from top to bottom - within the next couple of weeks. Any feedback I can give at that point, I'll share with you as well.

When these paid features will be released?

I think the simple way is the best way. Just charge a small fee for advanced functions.

Buying you a coffee is the better option i think. Though I wont be able to pay as of now (I am a teen. I can't earn). But $2 is reasonable enough to pay when I earn.

Marketplace - I think more people would buy themes and stuff for their blog more than recruitment. Though it makes sense that hashnode is developer centric and recruiting developers on this platform makes sense. I think themes will get you more, quick bucks than recruitment and will be easier to implement.

Training and courses - I would suggest to make use of platforms like lbry and reuse their network to host the courses. It will be easier.

Ads and tracking network is a bad idea.

I think you should charge for premium services.

I'm definitely leaning into the "Buy us a coffee" and "Training and Courses." The other options feel like you're stepping into saturated markets, and I'd rather see this platform keep a focus on content... not hiring, payments, jobs, etc.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

I believe everything else other than ads would work. My favorite choices are $2 premium and the Marketplace.

I think that Marketplace, Recruiting and Training are all a very natural fit for Hashnode. I also believe one of those will have the most potential for Hashnode monetization. Whether it works or not comes from the execution. It really depends on which form it is connected to Hashnode and how the platforms would work. One of those done right is probably also better than several done half-baked. Personally, Training and Courses would be great for me.

I'd not be happy with ads. The paid feature for devblog might also be interesting for Hashnode. And I like the merchandise idea. This seems like a why not.

Premium accout with special badge is a good choice.

tl;dr: if you don't have time to read it is a long post...

Sandeep Panda Thanks for invitation for this post. I was hoping that you won't ask me and I kept ignoring this one but here we are :) I want to point out two perspective and I hope I won't get roasted here.

Perspective 1, my personal feelings and opinion. I am not against anything on your list above and I do believe at some point if a project's expenses are overcoming income then someway it should be monetized and 2 bucks with those benefits above is nothing and nobody should complain about it.

Perspective 2, reality and my observations. Monetizing a project is really delicate subject. As human beings we don't like to pay for the things we used to have for free. This scares people. Yes even 50c is too much for someone. That's mostly ignorance or not really thinking the requirement behind it. Simply, now I need to pay, forget it thought process. Sometimes even discussing it can cause same effect.

Quick example. Early js days. jQuery is barely known, or maybe it wasn't even out yet. one big library out there was YUI provided by Yahoo. I think script.aculo.us was out, maybe not long time ago I can't really remember. Anyway, someone I know from newsgroups ( for millenials old email style forum/chat thingy ) Jack Slocum, came up with this idea that something look like YUI but much simpler, full javascipt that will allow you to create desktop application like web apps. He called it ExtJS ( Extended Javascript) in few months it was all over. Everybody in industry was aware and talking about it. So many huge companies like IBM, Compaq, Adobe you name it immediately implemented. At the time I was working in a company as IBM solution partner and we have used in so many enterprise level applications like Toyota, Phillip Morris SA, DYO, DrOetker ... and of course he got hired by some big development company, given a team just to focus on ExtJs. I forgot to mention, also it was open source. So now it wasn't just him but also any programmer working with it was also contributing into ExtJS. beta, v1, v2... crazy.

Then it happened... ExtJS acquired by another company. And Jack now was not in charge. They said. we spend this much money on this, and it is pretty popular, we need our investment to make money. Let's put licensing. First it started with minimal amounts, then by the time Sencha released the ExtJS we fall in love at first sight was already dead. People were so frustrated in extJS forums. They all left, all big contributors like Animal, Sanjiv and others. They were frustrated because they build major applications with it thinking this is an opensource project, it will grow and will get even better but now I have to pay 3000 per seat. Of course this timeline also collapses with jQuery and Bootstrap's peak as well. another open source, free product.

So I think, and this is my personal opinion, from all those discussions from extJS forum, Jack's biggest mistake was taking something free, open-source from people's hands thinking they will always stick to it. He should have release Sencha as a separate, better commercial project and not touch extJs. maybe here and there some updates etc to keep people happy. Since it was open source it was already growing by itself and he didn't even need to anything about it.

wow, too much to read :) anyway long story short, Hashnode is a great community awesome product, but I would suggest to be careful what are you asking for. like I said for some people paying 1cent to something they used to get free makes a lot of difference in their minds. Good luck

if anyone interested to know more about ExtJS and what happened you can read more in detail in this medium post hackernoon.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-ext-js-c9d727…

and here is some of comments people left in his personal blog where he is making peace with himself

Jack, I don’t know you or Sanjiv in any way but for this exchange, and I can tell you (and Sanjiv who a really hope is reading this) that we have very serious project underway using GWT and Ext. We started using gwt-ext. We are now DUMPING GWT-EXT and forever avoiding anything ever touched by Sanjiv. Thanks.

another user

Ugh, you should not have done this ‘he said, I said’ rant, this reflects very badly on the project, regardless of the facts. Changing the license is kind of sneaky even if the reasons are good. I don’t care why you did it, only that you did it. Since you can’t beat free, you will lose users over this, but they are not paying customers anyway. However, by blogging in this way, you could also lose the paying customers.

and another one

Well, this is sad for everyone especially for the customers. We’re going to loose. Basically everyone is a bit right but not all right. Jack just buggered up Ext GWT 1.0 since it hasn’t established itself yet. I feel for Darrell since the day before it was released on the extjs website he said it will be released as LGPL (mygwt.net/forum/viewtopic.php). You made him look like a fool. It is a real shame. So much potential. In the end, extjs will do ok since it has a number of customers using the library and is a good library. Not sure if you will attract new customers this way though. I was about to be a customer but luckily I only invested 3 weeks into your product. It is also a shame that you and Sjivan are conversing on this level since both of you would benefit tremendously of having a good relationship. We understand both of your viewpoints but really Jack what did you expect when you changed the licensing that way without telling anyone including Darrell and he started to work at your company! The link above proved he didn’t know (on April 21st for Christ sake) I don’t like the personal attack and there shouldn’t be. I do think it is the result of frustration, surprise and everyone’s unwillingness to compromise. #

Hi,

thank you for the invitation. In general, I agree with Hipkiss. The ideas are great, however knowledge should be free and ads are a no-go (because everyone here uses an adblocker anyway and you as the team promised us a 99% ad-free experience in the past).

What other alternatives are there? Here's some wild brainstorming:

• Premium accounts on Hashnode
  • Pro: People can unlock "fancy features" and support Hashndoe if they want
  • Pro: Model successfully used by other platforms as well
  • Contra: Fancy features might be distracting
  • Contra: Might not be enough incentive to spend money on
• HaaP (Hashnode as a Platform). This is a feature I also mentioned in my interview: Provide Hashnode for other subjects than code development and host it for a fee per usage, or get payed for providing an on-premise server container. Might need adapters to other software, though (for example LDAP)
  • Needs good marketing
  • Needs good support
  • Needs bridges to other software
• Provide statistics and insights for money: how many people viewed posts in a certain node, how many posts were created, which new tags are hyping, etc.
• Micro-Transactions for features, for example "Feature this question for $10"
• Bounty-Programs for questions, which give a percentage to Hashnode
• Hashnode Mentoring Platform. I am a mentor on another platform, on which mentees pay money for mentors, but the platform keeps a certain percentage. Hashnode already has a platform with a user-base (mentor-candidates and mentee-candidates included), so this might take off quickly. Mentors might provide subscriptions or single-sessions

I like the idea of ethical ads, or the bloggers can sort of "approve" the advertisements. That sort of thing.

I'll go with the Buying hashnode a coffee idea, paying $2/month for all those goodies listed and also getting a premium badge shouldn't be a big deal 😊.

Honestly, I think all of them (except the last one) are a good idea, and maybe you don't have to choose. Maybe just do all of them (except the ads)!

Hey,

HashNode team must have put a lot of thought and effect in brainstorming all those monetization options.

But I want to share my feed on the above ones.

• Drinking coffee to healthy, so 👍🏻 for that, but don't charge on creating a publication. Why? Because many people prefer to create different publications for different topics and write in those respectively.
• Creating a recruitment platform is tricky in itself and building third-party integration will steer you away from the main focus of HashNode.
• Uploading training and courses seem like a good plan, but before diving in paid courses maybe allow users to first upload short videos for example 15 min and see how users use the platform for the same.
• Allow users to create meetups and organize events.

Assuming you will be using Stripe for accepting payments, can also make possible that it accepts Indian cards too.

Rest, you guys are doing an awesome job!

My opinion-

[Devblog] Buy us coffee - Flat charge and worth paying for any user ✅

[Hashnode] Recruitment - Yes valid, and this can be done with share based model with organizations✅

[Hashnode] Marketplace - Two way process we need to do good amount of validation before we jump✅

[Devblog] Training and Courses - Worth making but Hashnode team has to makesure they have good content because if content comes to concern it directly impacts the platform not the individuals. This again involves validation ✅

[Devblog] Revenue Sharing via ethical ads-A big no for this, because I feel this idea will kill our current or upcoming user base. ❌

I have placed points in an order of acceptance by user.

Sandeep Panda,

Thanks for putting out all the points for discussion.

• Buying HashNode a cofee? Why Not? It is cool that, HashNode doesn't have plans for any paywall and $2 is perfectly fine for a Premium service.
• Recruitment is tricky and a platform to support Recruitment could be more trickier if not done right and not supported enough by the community around. I like the courage in thinking on this line. Appreciate!
• Training and Courses: This is the most loved one for me. I would be all happy if HashNode provides this platform. Here also we can have a free vs premium concept so that, it is not fully discouraged thinking it is paid.
• Ads? Nope!

All the best to you folks, doing great job!

💡[Devblog] Buy us coffee

I'd be more than happy to pay a couple dollars a month. I believe a lot of developers who have been with hashnode for a while will be happy to do this. This should be an option anyway I think. Providing premium features is always a good idea because we don't want to have a barrier to entry for anyone but we also need to make sure hashnode is still around. Personally I think this is the best option, but recruitment would probably be the most profitable.

💡[Hashnode] Marketplace

This is a good idea. Anything like that or fiverr.com would be cool to see. Especially considering it would be focused for devs. Would that mean that groups or companies could also offer services on the marketplace - I imagine it would just be individual devs for now. If this option is chosen then definitely go down the route of transaction fee.

💡[Hashnode] Recruitment

I like this. Hashnode could charge a flat 5% of the salary (+ $50 per advert?) and make enough money and also undercut every recruiter out there. I know hashnode charge $300 now? for posting a job advert. And because Hashnode is specialised for developers I like how targeted this is - it helps everyone involved. So this should definitely be done.

💡[Devblog] Training and Courses

For me this would be a no - just because I don't believe in paying for training or courses unless they are highly specialised and proprietary, e.g. how to setup a cisco contact centre with a hybrid cloud model and remote agents.
However, I can see the appeal and I know some would use it - just not sure how many. But it also does something weird to talking about ideas; I don't wish to be locked out of discussing points in an article or something just because it's behind a pay wall.

💡[Devblog] Revenue Sharing via ethical ads

No. As a general rule I'm really against the idea of any ads. I believe this will detract from the community and the experience that hashnode are building. Inserting any kind of ads would damage the flow and look of the blog posts regardless of how ads may be inserted.
Additionally - were devs - who doesn't have ads blocked or turned off in their browsers lol. Finally, I wouldn't consider it a viable business model option from a value perspective - yes revenue can be made from it but not much.

Other ideas

1. Partnerships with software companies working off a commission based sales model.
2. Host events/conferences or allow users to come to you to create an event within a city somewhere and charge for setup/door fee.
3. Sell merch - tshirts, hoodies, stickers (devs love stickers)
4. Hashnode could offer courses on how can i haz gud dev blog and the like.

Overall thoughts

I'm glad Hashnode is sorting out monetization. I want Hashnode to grow and continue to be around. Overall, Hashnode have many options to monetise the site and the end result will probably be an amalgamation of some or maybe even all of the above (apart from ads :P). I hope my thoughts help with choosing a direction. :)

Although our promise is to keep Hashnode ad-free, we can consider inserting "ethical ads" into the blog posts and share the revenue with authors.

If you are going to use a platform like codefund or similar to them I have no problem with inserting ads into blog posts. Their ads are developer-focused and they kinda look nice.

Finally, I know how Hashnode is going to make money :p

Sandeep Panda All ideas are good except the last one "Revenue Sharing via ethical ads" Even its opt-in feature, I feel a bit odd about it.

Making money from blogs by putting ads or popups is not our business model. We are committed to offering a paywall-less and ad-free experience to publishers and we are going to stick to it

Best of luck Hashnode Team.