Frequently Asked Questions
Business Model
Is Plug.events a for-profit business?
Yes, Plug.events is owned and operated by Public Spaces Technologies Ltd, a for-profit company registered in Ireland. We are a purpose-driven company created by a group of strangers who met online and shared the same vision, and we do prioritize civic integrity and social responsibility over profits to the greatest extent possible. As such, we may transition to a non-profit foundation if our revenue is sufficient to fund development.
How does Plug.events make money?
We make money by providing a subscription management service to our partners so that their core community can support them with recurring monthly patronage. We charge our partners a commission on their monthly subscription revenue.
We have carefully aligned our company interests with those of our partners, supporters, and patrons, so that we minimize the risk of conflicts of interest or the chances that our business model can become exploitative.
What will your commission be on monthly revenue?
We have yet to determine the precise percentage, but it will likely vary based upon different tiers of service and the value that different partners bring to the platform. In other words, the more you evangelize and bring new users to Plug.events the lower we can drop our fees.
Will you ever add paid advertising?
No, never… ever.
Will organizers have to pay?
Not to use the platform, or to publish events. To use our subscription management and other services in future, yes, with the exception of our ambassadors. To learn more about our ambassador programme please contact us.
Are you supported by venture capital?
As of May 2023, no, we are not. We have also eschewed the venture capital route of building this startup, choosing to bootstrap and forgo personal income for many years, thus retaining our ethical integrity and avoid a lot of time wasting meetings. Many, but not all, venture capitalists are part of the problem, and the game of growth for growth’s sake is largely responsible for the current social media paradigm, with all of its flaws.
But we would be lying to say that if a venture capital firm came to us and demonstrated that they have a high degree of ethical integrity that we would slam the door in their faces.
As an organizer, artist, or teacher, how and where will you promote my events?
Plug.events promotes your events in a number of ways:
- In our search engine on Plug.events
- In our personalized calendar app on Plug.fyi
- We suggest events to our users that we think they will be interested in
- We will email users event updates and calendars based upon their preferences
- We allow users to find events published on Plug directly from their favorite messaging apps
- We publish your events automatically to relevant social media groups and pages
- We have a growing number of partner sites that your events will automatically be published to. Check our website for a list of partners.
Can I sell tickets for my event through Plug.events?
Plug has a full-featured ticketing service that we provide to select organizers. We do not collect transaction fees, but rather provide this service for free to our partners. Contact us for a demo.
What communities do you support today?
Anyone from any community can join and use the rich features today, but we actively curate events and cultivate partnerships within forró and balfolk, particularly in Europe.
What communities do you intend to support in the future / When will you support my community?
We intend to extend this active support soon, both geographically and to related dance and martial arts communities. Beyond that our platform is designed to be agnostic, to support any community, whether professional networks, sports, religious communities, and more, whether they be local or internationally oriented.
If you feel that your community would benefit by migrating to our website, please reach out to us. We love to meet fellow altruists dedicated to culture and community.
Where do you get all the events from?
We use a mix of manual and automated curation, cataloging lists of organizers, artists, and teachers, along with other websites that list events, and then either manually or automatically pulling the information. This is a labor intensive process as we are still working on the system to remove duplicates and organize the information into the structure that we need.
Will you sponsor, promote, or support my events?
We cannot sponsor events, but we are happy to publish and promote them across our channels, including our website, email, messaging apps, and social media. Our mission is ultimately to support you to develop a stable recurring income from your community, and to grow it by showcasing your events to people outside of your network.
How can I partner with Plug?
Unsure of where you go from here? Sign up, or reach out to us directly. We want to learn about you and your community, and are happy to take it step-by-step.
User Privacy
Do I need an account/profile to use Plug?
No, we have designed this site so that people can get a lot of value out of it without signing up or giving us any information you are not comfortable sharing.
Do I need to use my real name?
No, we will have a number of ways to verify that users are real people and are not creating multiple accounts, but as a privacy first social networking site we do not need to know anything you are not comfortable sharing with us. We use peer-verification, and assume that your peers will know you by your nickname and personal style.
Do you verify users or organizations?
We will provide various degrees verification as an option for users, although likely through a third party non-profit. We primarily rely on peer-verification. For organizations we will verify the ownership of events and organization pages when they are claimed, and may also provide organization verification as an option in future, although this is not currently in our plans. To process subscriptions there is a requirement of the payment processor to verify due to banking regulations known as KYC.
Will I be required or pressured to verify by ID?
Not by us, we respect user privacy deeply and will do everything possible to avoid invasive practices. Other users may choose to interact with ID verified users outside their core communities, which fall outside our peer-verification system. We intend to use a privacy-first, third-party non-profit for strictly optional SMS and ID verification, and will never charge you directly or make a profit from ID verification.
May I have more than one account?
You may, we will not make this against the rules, but our intention is to make it difficult to maintain multiple accounts to avoid what are commonly called ‘sockpuppets’, ‘brigading’, ‘review bombing’, ‘astroturfing’, ‘bot spamming’, or ‘mass gaslighting’. The more difficult it is to maintain numerous accounts and grow their reach the more healthy digital spaces are.
Do you sell user data?
No, never. We barely collect any user data, and make it easy to delete your account and personal data when you wish to disconnect from our service. Our business model is based upon a mutually beneficial partnership with the core members of real-world communities, allowing their fans to support them through monthly subscriptions. It is not about making promises, we have pulled up all of the incentives to be invasive, root and stem, so we are not tempted to betray your trust.
How secure is my data stored (where is it stored)?
We take the security and privacy of your account and data very seriously, using the latest encryption and authentication technologies to keep your information safe.
What does Plug.events do with personal information?
The short answer is, only what we need to in order to administer and facilitate your account, so you can get the most out of our service. The long answer is comprehensively detailed in our privacy policy.
Does Plug have private groups?
Plug has a range of novel privacy controls, and we intend to create ways for moderated communities to communicate in private and controlled spaces. But right now we do not have private groups, and will likely not develop them in the way you are familiar with on platforms like Facebook, Slack, Discord, or messaging apps.
The reason for this is that we want to avoid the siloing effects of these mentioned platforms, where communities become difficult to find from the outside. These private groups also exist across many platforms, and there is no need to build what already exists and is working the way people like.
Can I hide or control the visibility of my profile?
Yes, we adopt a private-by-default model in accordance with GDPR, the European regulatory standards.
As the platform develops we will add novel means of controlling your privacy, so that you can make yourself or your content visible only to specific communities, or individuals who meet a certain criteria set by you.
Do you have a dedicated person responsible for privacy?
Yes, check out our team page for a full list of contributors and responsibilities.
Will you send me emails, and how often?
We will, but we are still working out how to balance being useful without becoming a nuisance. We will be adding features to allow you to control the frequency and types of emails we send to you, but until then we will try to keep it within sensible limits, while ensuring that you get the most out of the site and don’t miss out on anything we definitely think you want to know about.
How long do you keep my data after I delete my account?
We are legally allowed to keep this data for 30 days after account deletion, and we do hold to this 30 day policy in order to give you time to change your mind. Account deletions are final, after all!
Why is there no cookie policy consent on your site, do you use them?
Since we only use a single cookie for reasons termed ‘legitimate interest’, we are not legally required to add an annoying cookie pop-up. Woo-hoo!