Discord plans to provide creators with a new way to monetize their communities by selling digital products through one-time purchases. These new “Downloadables” could be things like a recipe ebook, a game guide, or a digital backdrop, and the company plans to start experimenting with them “in the coming months,” says Discord’s Derek Yang. wrote in a Tuesday blog post. Downloadables can be purchased from a Server Shop, which is also being tested.
The new Downloadables and Server Shop add to Discord’s server plans as ways for creators to monetize their servers. Server plans are also getting an improvement: the company is adding tier templates to make it easier to decide which plans to offer to your community. (Though Yang’s blog reminds that “not every monetization opportunity should become a get-rich-quick scheme,” perhaps to dissuade people from using subscriptions to try to make money.)
As part of Tuesday’s announcements, Discord also introduced a new type of channel in beta: Media channels. These are designed to target things like videos, photos, and files, and can be a useful option for communities that want to better split meme dumps from text chat. They will be rolling out Tuesday to “all community servers with server subscriptions enabled,” Yang wrote.
The growing number of features could make Discord a more attractive platform to build community. And with people looking for new places to hang out, given the changes in platforms like Twitter and Reddit, these new updates could encourage even more people to jump over.
