I asked around so-called influencers why they were not on #Mastodon . Here are the most common replies:
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Bruno Rocha ⭐replied 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 ⭐ 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 ⭐replied 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 ⭐ 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 ⭐ last edited by
> you can make open-source software funded by donations
Like Mastodon, the largest AP project, whose CEO *until today* makes ~30k€/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. ️
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Marc Hedlundreplied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
@mekkaokereke @polotek @iwein @thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft Hell yes. I would love it if I could delegate moderation to a paid service that would be better at it than I could be, and that could collect signals from multiple servers to catch problems before many people have to see them.
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@marcprecipice @mekkaokereke @polotek @iwein @thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft this is a service we (the Mastodon org) currently provide to the EC (we also host their instance), and they pay for it. It is all very manual for now, but would be made much more easier with what I described here: https://renchap.com/blog/post/evolving_mastodon_trust_and_safety/
Our recently announced Fediscovery project will build the first bricks towards this.