The thing I love about this post and all its replies, is the stark difference in replies in answer to Brent's very reasonable question.

Anders Norén

@thisismissem @mekkaokereke I understand that Mastodon, and Fedi in general, has issues when it comes to moderation but "security by obscurity" is, as usual, not the correct answer.

AJ Sadauskas

@mistergibson @mekkaokereke There was a whole wave of Australian journalists and prominent #auspol Twitter users who moved to Mastodon when Elon first bought the bird app.

Some moved back to X, others moved on to Threads and BlueSky.

Many who tried Masto for a time ended up on BlueSky.

I think there's a few reasons why that happened.

The onboarding journey and the default app, especially two years ago but still today, just weren't great.

There have also been issues with moderation and harassment.

There's issues, like quotes, that were supported by other Fedi apps but not Mastodon.

With credit to the Mastodon developers, some of those issues have been fixed, just nig nearly fast enough.

I definitely think there's value in Mastodon and the Fediverse more broadly.

But I'm now a lot less sure that role will be "the new Twitter".

Bad Gardener

@thisismissem @mekkaokereke

Although, when people start seeing budgets of $30+ million, they often get more interested in the money than the principles.

I find it astonishing, as somebody who can barely use 5% of the functions on my doohickey gadgets, how Mastodon is held together by goodwill and string. The trade off from that is that we must accept what people can afford to do for us with their time and efforts.

Laurens Hof

@mekkaokereke I've seen roughly a different gazillion tech explanations of why people go to Bluesky, and zero explanations that account for the fact that on Bluesky you have AOC talking about Baja Blast Chicken

Emelia 👸🏻

@violanders @mekkaokereke correct, hence those wanting a small network probably want to be on an island network instead of a public free for all.

mekka okereke :verified:

@Badgardener @thisismissem

Nope.

I refuse to accept that.

We will find a way to pay for Mastodon development. We should also be able to prioritize safety and user experience features.

An open source app I highlight is Inkscape. Yes, it's an open source app. But they *obsess* about user experience. Read the release notes for Inkscape 1.3. seriously. Read it.

Release notes/1.3 - Inkscape Wiki

(wiki.inkscape.org)

Fight giants. Even BlueSky is punching up at Twitter. $30MM vs $50B+. More than 2 orders of magnitude.

Emelia 👸🏻

@mekkaokereke @Badgardener we should refuse to accept that.

But the reality right now is projects are underfunded. I've heard of at least a few that may need to shutdown within the next 6-12 months unless they can attract funding.

For 5 engineers in Europe, you're looking at a burn rate of at least €30,000 a month (that's €60-72k salaries), then there's operating expenses, taxes, server/infrastructure costs on top.

Bad Gardener

@mekkaokereke @thisismissem

Refuse to accept what? That we should be grateful to those currently keeping Mastodon afloat?

If you have a way to prioritise and shortcut improvements to safety and onboarding, that's wonderful. Truly. Get going, and I'm in awe of your talents.

But for the vast majority of users, there are two gripes - what Mastodon *isn't* providing, and the ridiculous amount of gatekeeping within the system. Both are off-putting. For the former, most of us can't fix that.

Emelia 👸🏻

@mekkaokereke @Badgardener

I'm currently targeting €68k a year and I'm at €51k now, with €40k coming from just one place.

I'm working on moderation tools in Mastodon, FIRES, leading the ActivityPub Trust & Safety Taskforce, and contributing to a handful of other projects, and I'm *barely* scraping by.

I'm even trying to sell more services. I also help the Hachyderm team with bugs & infrastructure.

Bad Gardener

@thisismissem @mekkaokereke

Exactly, and people like me need to put up, or shut up. What you do is great, and if people want *this* model to continue, they need to accept that you're doing all you can.

Or, we can start thinking about funding.

Emelia 👸🏻

@Badgardener @mekkaokereke keeping a boat millimetres from sinking isn't a fantastic outcome. It's a dire situation, obviously the boat shouldn't be sinking in the first place.

Emelia 👸🏻

@Badgardener @mekkaokereke the latter would be *really* good. I can only do all that I do as long as I have enough money to stay afloat financially & pay my bills and put food on my table.

Bad Gardener

@thisismissem @mekkaokereke

So that's your next target: how to get your work to fruition. It's never not going to be about money, so either it's a slow process with an organic, ethical income - or rapid with money from potentially problematic sources.

I think we may be talking at cross-purposes: I'm not advocating for protection and safeguarding to take back seats. I've done plenty of those things. I'm saying that we need to be grateful for what you can currently do, or else put up the money.

Emelia 👸🏻

@Badgardener @mekkaokereke have a look at the latest trunks and tidbits: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/11/trunk-tidbits-october-2024/ (2 PRs are mine, and I was one of two people who reviewed the FASP project outside of Mastodon and helped guide them away from OAuth for that)

Have a look at the titles of my open PRs: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pulls/ThisIsMissEm

I'm doing the work, yet only 54 people are funding my work, and I talk about my work & market myself A LOT.

mekka okereke :verified:

@Badgardener @thisismissem

Fair question!

So I'll answer it. I refuse to accept that people who work on Fediverse trust & safety full time should have to be inches from financial disaster all the time. As an industry we have to find other ways to pay for stuff. Some Fedi people are so anti-VC and anti-capitalist, that they become anti-commerce, and anti-paying people for their labor.

Paying people for their labor is not bad. It's good actually.

mekka okereke :verified:

@Badgardener @thisismissem

So I refuse to accept substandard Trust and Safety and on boarding features.

Because we have the people that know how to build great features.

Emelia 👸🏻

@mekkaokereke @Badgardener right now it's mostly having the time to both build, review and ship the features.

As mentioned in another thread I've been working on a bunch of these onboarding and moderation features we'll need in the coming months separately, along with others.

can

@mekkaokereke @Badgardener @thisismissem I think it’s more about finding a good revenue model that does not compromise the longer term viability of building an open network vs. people being anti getting paid. There are successful examples of this being done with donations as the main revenue source, such as Wikipedia.

I am not sure how other revenue models can generate significant revenue without excluding people who can’t pay? Do you have examples?

Emelia 👸🏻

@can @mekkaokereke @Badgardener yes, I literally have https://support.thisismissem.social — financial support is all I ask, whether its $5/month or $500/month, every little bit helps make my work more secure and sustainable.

Right now one of my contracts may be at risk due to funding issues, so 2025 is looking very scary to say the least.

can

@thisismissem @mekkaokereke @Badgardener Good to know! Thanks for your work! I think Mastodon should pay people like you, though. I know it’s also hard for them to raise money, but still easier than for you I’d guess.