I had this idea recently: if people are willing to pay a small fee monthly for streaming services or Photoshop, surely some would also be willing to pay a similar amount for the FOSS they use. Even a few cents monthly would add up to quite a substantial sum over a vast userbase*. In light of this, I’ve started working on an app that records your app usage, and then at the end of the month splits whatever sum of money you want to donate amongst the apps in proportion to the time you spent using them.

Then it will (hopefully) let you donate to all of those projects with a single click.

Since it’s only halfway finished, I’m posting this to gague how much interest there would be in such an app. Could you could see yourself using something like this? Do you have any ideas for what I should add/change?

*(It also occurred to me that perhaps one way to fix surveillance capitalism on the internet would be if every HTTP get request came with a microtransaction (eg 0.01¢) attached; those without money would gain those 0.01¢ by seeing ads, like today)

  • SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    19 hours ago

    I would love an APP like this, actually thought about needing something like this a few months back.

    I would use it, but I see the problems mentioned by others with giving hugely wrong incentives to devs, if the app gains traction (running in background, making slower software, hiding dependencies, etc.)

    Also I dont really know if use time really is the best metric (dont know anything better though.)

    Also also there would need to be a smart way to detect dependencies, forks and the like, as the frontend is often not the part which is the most work to maintain

    • SteevyT@beehaw.org
      2·
      19 hours ago

      Perhaps amount of time the app is the focused window AND the mouse is in it or keystrokes are actively being entered to it?