I asked around so-called influencers why they were not on #Mastodon . Here are the most common replies:
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Emelia πΈπ»replied to Raphael Lullis last edited by
@raphael @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
And I'm saying that the instance you listed all help fund the development, not just operating their own instance.
e.g., earlier this year Nivenly paid me for fixing a security vulnerability in pixelfed which was CVE 9.9/10
Nivenly also provides me invaluable feedback on my work developing Mastodon. Not all beneficial relationships are financial, some are symbiotic where a developer can gain knowledge and feedback from people using tools everyday
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Emelia πΈπ»replied to Emelia πΈπ» last edited by
@raphael @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
Nivenly has also filed several bugs raising things to our attention where moderator needs weren't being met; you've, as far as I can tell contributed exactly one issue to the project.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Emelia πΈπ» last edited by
@thisismissem @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
I have both. The website's copy is indeed confusing because I added managed hosting later.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
Do you think that, e.g, fastmail needs to offer something extra on top of their email service, or that "pure" hosting is a legitimate business in itself?
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Bruno Rocha βreplied to Raphael Lullis last edited by
@raphael @thisismissem
fastmail solves a problem that doesn't exist yet in the mastoverse, I would pay for fastmail for reasons: Liberate me from big tech domains (gmail...), privacy (my data is encrypted, no advertising recommendation), use my own domain, faster and reliable.I could get those things hosting my own mail server but that is difficult and expensive to maintain, so fastmail is worth paying.
In the case of Social Microblogging, what does your service do different? why I would signup instead of running my own one-click instance or joining a big community instance? encryption for my DMs? guaranteed delivery of all activities? Route my own domain? privacy control?
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Rafael Martinsreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
@bruno @raphael @thisismissem fwiw, I'm seriously considering to move out of fastmail because their antispam is a joke.
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Bruno Rocha βreplied to Rafael Martins last edited by
@rafaelmartins @raphael well, I don't have much to say about their services because I am not a user, my point is that they have a selling pitch, a business model, reasons to pay for.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
How many instances disappeared overnight because the admins were overwhelmed with the user influx, or failed to keep it secure, or could not deal with the moderation, or shut down because they hit an unrecoverable database corruption...
My (few) customers pay me because they want a worry-free experience, and this is what I strive to provide.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Rafael Martins last edited by
Replace fastmail with migadu or any other email hosting service. The point still stands.
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Rafael Martinsreplied to Raphael Lullis last edited by
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Bruno Rocha βreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
Pitch 1.
Pay me 29/y and I give you an ordinary Mastodon account + (lemmy and matrix if you care), and that is all.
Pitch 2.
I offer a unique mastodon account on a high availability server, the list of guarantees [...], exclusive features and improvements as you can see on [...], a very unique and exclusive web and mobile client that extends mastodon functionalities, route your own domain to your account, monitoring panel etc..
All of this for 290/y
It will ve very easier to get me in for 10x the price because the option 2 really offer advantages, fill the gaps, solve problems.
How to get all those features working? well that is why it is called "work" you need a team, a plan, a business model etc...
One can't just offer the bare account with no differences/advantages and charge for it, unless this one is a project/community/non-profit/club etc...
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
> How to get all those features working? well that is why it is called "work" you need a team, a plan, a business model etc...
You also need *money* and time to develop all these things without revenue. How are you going to get that?
Requirement: if the answer includes any form of "Venture Capital", it is the wrong answer.
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Bruno Rocha βreplied to Rafael Martins last edited by
@rafaelmartins @raphael I got the point that you are unhappy as a fastmail customer, but this convo is not about it, it is about having a business model to sell, to convince people to pay for it (regardless of the quality) supposedly, there is the need to offer something that solves real problems,
getting a bare mastodon account is not a real problem, actually it is free, actually there are companies literally paying (as hosting the service) for you to join (e.g Vivaldi)
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
> One can't just offer the bare account with no differences/advantages and charge for it, unless this one is a project/community/non-profit/club etc...
One can, and one does. Whether you think this is something you'd be willing to pay for is a completely different.
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Bruno Rocha βreplied to Raphael Lullis last edited by
VC is not the only model, you can bootstrap with a group of friends, you can make open-source software funded by donations, you can apply for funding programs.
What you can't do is blaming indie hackers, hobbyists, communities that offer the same thing for free for the unsuccessful business model you may have.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
> getting a bare mastodon account is not a real problem, actually it is free
Remember "if you are not paying for the product, you are the product" ?
Why is it that we seem to casually ignore this when it comes to open projects?
My *whole argument* from https://raphael.lullis.net/community-is-not-enough/ is that we need more people willing to pay for something *even if they are made available for free*.
It's not because something does not have a price that it does not have a cost.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Bruno Rocha β last edited by
> you can make open-source software funded by donations
Like Mastodon, the largest AP project, whose CEO *until today* makes ~30kβ¬/year, less than an intern at a Big Tech?
> you can apply for funding programs.
I did that for Fediverser. 10 months waiting for the grant to be approved, money for ~1 month of work.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to Raphael Lullis last edited by
> What you can't do is blaming indie hackers (...) that offer the same thing for free.
I'm not "blaming" those who offer. What I am saying for the past two years is that we need a culture change in relation from the *users*. I'm saying "you get what you pay for".
If the majority of people keep expecting things to be given/offered for free, there will never be a mature ecosystem and it will be forever a niche thing, always staying behind Big Tech.
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Marco Rogersreplied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
@mekkaokereke @iwein @thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft I would hope so. But nobody has explained to me where what the business model is supposed to be.
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to Marco Rogers last edited by
@polotek @iwein @thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft
Super fair question.
I think moderation is a service. It makes sense to me to subscribe to that service, and to be billed periodically.
Right now though there's a large gap between "what people are willing to pay for that service," and "how much that service really costs to provide." This is obscured by the fact that most moderation is 100% volunteer today. βοΈ