Subscription unlocks depth into the mind

For Commune, the subscription model lets you collect followers who want to follow your thoughts. It’s like Substack for personal wikis. People can browse for free, but if they want depth into your full thinking, they subscribe.

Three panes deep, then you pay gives readers three clicks from the homepage for free. You start on the home page, click through two more levels, then you hit a wall. Stars guide you to core ideas. Want to explore the whole brain? Subscribe.

When AI features layer on top, the cost argument gets stronger. Semantic search across thousands of notes isn’t free. AI that analyzes how a note evolved over time, showing every edit and writing the story of those changes, that’s compute-heavy.

I’m thinking $2 to unlock the full brain, $5 for semantic search and commenting, $10 for deep research features I haven’t built yet. Still working out if pricing should be creator-specific or platform-wide.

People who get deep into this will want The Commune box. Self-host it, bring your own API keys, hook up your own model. Use Ollama to avoid cloud providers entirely. As your note collection grows, the economics flip. Running your own box becomes cheaper than cloud credits for heavy AI use.

Build in Public creates the case for paying. People see the value before the paywall. The mechanics show themselves through use (Gamification drives self-discovery).