This is not something that could actually help friends.nico survive, but the thought is inspired by their situation:
Would there be demand for an optional "paid accounts" mode for Mastodon servers? For future consideration #mastodev
Some servers today require Patreon or OpenCollective membership to sign up on, or integrate a Stripe button (but not very well). The above idea would basically formalize those use cases.
@Gargron i don't think it should be formalized. requiring external payment is fine for those use cases.
@Gargron the only issue with this is all payments are typically centralised. If you do go down this route, have you considered to incorporate the option for crypto currencies along side it? This would be useful for hidden services that use Mastodon & require donations to stay alive!
Like a "mastodon gold account"?
Well, it would be cool if you could intergrate it with differnet plattforms like @Liberapay
@Gargron maybe a generic “signup authorisation” API would be useful? Then admins could integrate it with whatever payment or subscription method they choose.
@Gargron it depends on what paid accounts can do but sounds good for tiny instance admins
@zatta No, not like a special type of account. Pay-to-sign-up
@Gargron If it helps Mastodon survive, I think is a neat idea. I don't know if an associated patreon would be the best course of action, but sounds the most frictionless way
@Gargron it would be great to have a low friction way to transfer money on mastodon, whether that is to tip the admin or buy something from another person…obviously this would involve integrating with a proprietary processor 
Steve @Gargron Yes, but would it actually be easier for small instances than just use patreon or whatever?
@Gargron
Would Mastadon care that an account is paid, or is it just that some third-party has verified the account as "special"?
Doesn't matter how or why they're considered special - they could have donated money, or they could be a member of an organisation (eg. School)
@rolaveric It's not about account status but account existence. Pay to sign up instead of free sign up.
@Gargron why are they closing?
@TheKinrar It is a community policy based decision, from what they've told me
@Gargron okay, that's kind of a strange thing
@TheKinrar Yes, I do not fully understand it. At first I was told Dwango wasn't doing well financially and friends.nico was a big cost sink without contributing back to their main business. That, I can understand. But when I suggested ways to decrease their costs, they said that would not help reverse course.
@Gargron That's really sad. 
@Gargron it's the second already, should have posted it earlier
