While many other websites provide a tipping mean of engagement for their userbase like (Twitch, YouTube Live, Reddit and Twitter via 3rd party bots...) why don't photo sharing websites offer such feature giving them a huge potential to boost engagement and at the same time provide another stream of income for both the photographers and the platform 💡
Suggested implementation
Each registered user is given an internal wallet within the website
That wallet can be funded by either a debit or credit card/PayPal/Google or Apple Pay/Cryptocurrency
A non registered user in the website can still be able to tip using a debit/credit or cryptocurrencies
Tipping is done free of charge between users within the website
Users are charged a percentage once they want to withdraw their wallet balance to an external destination (PayPal/Google or Apple Wallet/Cryptocurrency Address/Bank account etc...)
Each tip should/can
Be accompanied with an optional note
Give the user the option to tip anonymously
The tipping button can be placed next to the Like & Comment buttons using for example a 💲 sign
NB: Considering that such implementation requires months of backend work below i suggest an immediate alternative implementation using cryptocurrencies that can be installed within a week while waiting for the above implementation to take place
users/photographers are asked to provide a cryptocurrency address that belongs to them for example (Bitcoin/Ethereum/Litecoin/Dogecoin/Pinkcoin etc..) that will be saved in the website settings
Clicking on the tipping button next to the like & comment buttons automatically pops-up a QR code that points to that provided cryptocurrency address
and that's it. All you have to do then is to use your mobile wallet to scan that QR and tip
This will be huge especially among instagramers 👌
Yuuuuuuuuuuge 🙌