From the Empire thread:

So glad forum members are bringing this up; thanks for the suggestion.  Dorkman makes some excellent points.  Right now the majority of the show is paid for out of one guy’s pocket, and he’s perfectly happy with that, as are the rest of us happy to keep going just as we have been. 

That said, there are a few other ideas I've been trying to implement.

1.) Netfilx affiliate.  Netflix streaming is hands down just plain awesome; we highly endorse this product.  The basic package is like $9 / month, and there are tons of movies and t.v. shows you can stream instantly.  The quality is pretty good too.  The way we would implement it is with a banner or icon or link on the site.  Click the link, sign up for the free 30 day trial.  You can cancel after the 30 days, but I don't think you'll want to, especially for $9 / month.  We get a referral for every customer that signs up via our link, even if they cancel after the trial, and the kickbacks for us are pretty good, by far the most profitable.  We think it's a service that rocks, you are under no commitment to keep it (but we think you will want to), and we get paid just for getting folks to try it.  You get a great service, and help us out at the same time.  So that's pretty much win-win.

2.) iTunes affiliate.  Many of the films we cover are available to buy or rent on iTunes.  It's like Netfix in that you can click now, watch now.  I'm pretty sure when we did The Core that was an iTunes rental.  Rentals are only $3-$4, so it's a reasonable way to watch a movie you might not have seen, but don't want to buy outright.  Again, it would be an easy link somewhere; click, opens iTunes, brings up the store.  Like Amazon we get like a buck, and again, it’s a service that we use.

3.) PayPal.  Good old fashion donations.  I see this working two ways; one as a “Donate here” button, throw us what you want, when you can; and two, as a regular membership.  Maybe we could integrate some sort of sponsorship icon, a gold star or something in the forum next to the member's name depending on how much / often they donate.  A full membership would be something like $10 every 6 months which gets you a special identifier in your profile and in the forums, and maybe access to commentaries early, as we finish them.  Dunno, I'm open to suggestion as to membership extras; you tell us, what would you want if you were getting everything you get now, and throwing us $20 / year?  What sort of perks would make that worth it?

I would further implement an actual commerce page; one page that will take you to Amazon, Netfilx, iTunes, PayPal, Cafe Press, and whatever else we might incorporate in the future.

When I come across folks generating regular compelling content I enjoy that offer an easy and convenient way of thanking them financially, I know I don’t mind throwing them a few bucks to help them out.   I know if I were still just a regular listener and one day a “Donate to the DIF Pizza fund” or some such button became available, I’d throw in a couple bucks, and that’s really all we’re talking about.  The point is, if it’s not there for folks to take advantage of, they can’t.

I know that a good deal of the resistance to these ideas comes from the notion that if we start asking people for money, we’ll be seen as just that, guys out to make a buck.  You all can let us know if that’s the impression you’re getting, but I hope we’ve made it clear that’s not the case.   Amazon, Netflix and iTunes are all services we use and would recommend to anyone, regardless of what was in it for us. 

The Amazon store has been up for months now, and I think we’ve been pretty good about letting folks know it’s there, without being overbearing about it.  Same goes for this stuff.  We want you to want to help us out, in your own way, to your own degree, and give you the means to do so.  That’s it.

”Like Down in Front? Want to help us out?  Check out our commerce page, there’s a lot of good stuff there.” 

Discuss.