Imagine a community where I want to require logins for any access (so I've enabled the 'login required' setting) and I want to require all users to have a subscription.
Currently, users have to have created an account before they can create a subscription (via the Subscriptions plugin.) This makes perfect sense, of course; One can't have a subscription until you have an account.
Unfortunately, once a user creates their account, I must have some amount of visible content. That means I need an extra category, just to hold one topic, that says: "…you're halfway! Now you have to subscribe."
With the following ideas, account creation and subscription setup are still a two-step process. But there would be no users on the site who have an account, but not a subscription (b/c they get shown a wall to setup their subscription.)
A new "account-creation-more-url" option for Discourse
Allow me to set a new option (call it "account-creation-more-url") that holds the URL of some Topic that I've page-published, and an option "account-creation-more-link-text".
Only if Discourse is configured with 'login required' enabled, then a new link to that URL appears on the account creation screen/modal. This lets me easily build a page that details everything I need to detail. This gives me a way to lead people to something that explains what's going on, when they face the account-creation wall. (It's on me to put a working "create your account" link in that published page, etc.)
A new "subscriptions required" option for the Subscriptions plugin
A new boolean "subscriptions-required", and a field "subscriptions-required-products" to specify a comma-separated list of products. (Ones from the Subscriptions plugin of course.)
When a user (other than a site admin of course) logs in, if they do not have one of those products active. They see another screen/model that forces a subscription setup.
And two fields "subscriptions-required-more-url" and "subscriptions-required-more-link-text". (Which I'd set to the same page-published topic that I'd use on the account-creation wall.) This lets me lead people somewhere that explains what/why subscriptions.
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Other topics in Meta that are somewhat related…
https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-login-required-for-discourse-subscriptions/316011
https://meta.discourse.org/t/combine-registration-and-subscription-processes/270978
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