This:
A merchant of record (MoR) is a legal entity responsible for selling goods or services to an end customer . They handle all payments and take on the associated liabilities, such as collecting sales tax, ensuring Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, and honoring refunds and chargebacks.
In terms of why it would make sense to allow group owners charge for group memberships and access to Discourse categories, the most obvious answer is because the “creator” economy is huge and Discourse has the potential to operate in that space. The creator economy is all about community. Discourse is a tool for building communities, so it would be a good fit for the space.
A more speculative answer is that I think there’s a trend towards crowdfunding and patronage for funding activities that fall outside of the normal creator economy.
A Discourse based, category level subscription service also might be the easiest way to profitably provide free Discourse hosting. I’m assuming that the forum owner would take a cut of the profits. Substack is a good model of how this could work.
The point that’s raised earlier in this topic that Discourse aims to promote decentralization on the web is valid. But there’s a possible middle ground. Discourse is open source software and has tools that allow for exporting and importing categories. A group owner on a particular forum could be given the ability to export their community if they wished. Similar to (but easier than) the way the owner of a physical business can move their store to a new location.