Discord is in the process of testing a premium service that, if implemented, would allow moderators to monetize their servers, allowing users to pay for tiered content and access to otherwise inaccessible channels.
Discord’s Premium Memberships feature would feasibly include creator access to analytics, premium channels, and servers, and other forms of rewards for paying subscribers, all in an effort to integrate with Discord what many creators have used things like Patreon for in the past.
The company hopes to create more of a sense of community with longevity on their own platform. “By providing tools that let community creators earn money, more of them will run healthy engaged communities for longer periods of time,” Sumeet Vaidya, Discord’s director of engineering, told The Verge.
“This is one of our most-requested features from creators,” said Vaidya.
While Discord has allowed creators to connect their Discord services to things like Patreon, YouTube, Twitch, and more, the Premium Memberships initiative will theoretically help keep users–both creators and subscribers–centered on Discord, allowing for a more streamlined approach and, ideally, a decrease in frustration stemming from platform-jumping for rewards.
The integration into Discord also means that a certain amount of the proceeds will go directly back to Discord itself. For now, Discord has said that creators will retain 90 percent of the revenue they make from Premium Memberships, leaving Discord’s overall fee at 10 percent.
Discord’s vision is, as highlighted by The Verge, reminiscent of the core allure of Clubhouse: closer-knit, more intimate communities that exist–and continue to do so–with purpose. It’s clear that the company has the intention of rewarding creators, fostering long-lasting connections between members of those creators’ communities, and empowering others to migrate their membership tiers from multiple platforms into one central hub.
As of now, Discord’s current roll-out of Premium Memberships access is confined to desktop (including web browser) platforms, and only a handful of creators have access to the feature. Since the actual features of a Premium Membership will be contingent on the whims and culture selected by creators, it’s reasonable to expect a long, slow roll-out with some tweaks along the way to accommodate common needs.
