I asked around so-called influencers why they were not on #Mastodon . Here are the most common replies:
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April The Pink ⋆☾╶⃝⃤☽⋆replied to Raphael Lullis last edited by@raphael @thisismissem @mekkaokereke @nixCraft well but then you need to offer people something useful they actually want to pay money for
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@raphael @april @mekkaokereke @nixCraft
If I wanted to do that, I would. It was my choice to do what I'm doing, with the financial changes it meant taking on. Please don't infantilise me.
Money is not what drives me.
Yes, I need money to live, but I don't need to be making €80-160k, yes, I know my skills are able to ask €160k, I've done that before. It didn't make me happy nor healthy.
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@thisismissem @april @mekkaokereke @nixCraft
To repeat: my point is not to argue your choices. You and only you know what is best for you.
My point is that there are so few people working on Fedi because most people are not willing to make the same choices you did and leave money on the table or sacrifice their earning potential.
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I value the Fediverse and want to fund its existence. I don't want to simply set money on fire. What are my options?
My charity budget is completely allocated. My investment budget is not.
I think that's a critical challenge, if someone solves that without breaking the ideals, it would be beyond awesome.
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Jürgen Hubertreplied to mekka okereke :verified: last edited by
@mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
Okay, here are some numbers. I translate German folk tales and publish them on my Patreon and in books. I published a Stakeholder Report for 2022 where I go into the details for my revenues and expenses:
Stakeholder Report 2022 - Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles
Once again, it has taken me far too long to publish my annual Stakeholder Report. But here are my musings […]
Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles (sunkencastles.com)
I advertise via engaging on social media. In 2022 I made the switch from Twitter to Mastodon, and my revenue was:
€834.17 from Patreon
€299.36 from book sales at AmazonI haven't yet managed to do a full-fledged Stakeholder Report for 2023, but my revenue last year was:
€2,071.18 from Patreon
€443.17 from book sales at AmazonThus, I can conclude that the move from Twitter to Mastodon has not hurt me in any way, and engagement is way better here than it was over there.
The revenue is, of course, not nearly enough to live off. But I am still very early in my writing career (I have only published two books so far), and this is still something in my free time next to a busy full-time day job. I expect that as long as I publish more books and more translations, my revenue will gradually increase - perhaps to a level where I can justify reducing hours at my day job.
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Raphael Lullisreplied to April The Pink ⋆☾╶⃝⃤☽⋆ last edited by [email protected]
@april @mekkaokereke @thisismissem @nixCraft
Providing Mastodon/Lemmy/Matrix/Funkwhale, ensuring they stay up, secure, spam-, abuse- and harassment-free.
Helping with onboarding and troubleshooting, figuring out gotchas and limitations of the software to let them know if there are workarounds or fixes. Sometimes even getting involved in the project development, writing and following up on issues.
This is a service that (I think) is worth a lot more than $29/year.
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@iwein @mekkaokereke @raphael @april @nixCraft
There isn't really ROI for stuff that is open-source, and that's where we really need the money, not in for-profit services.
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mekka okereke :verified:replied to ⁂iwein⁂ last edited by
@iwein @thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft
The Nivenly Foundation has given grants to many of the folk I mentioned in this post. ️
mekka okereke :verified: (@[email protected])
@thisismissem @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Hot take: People think that the Fediverse isn't safe(yet) because of slight differences between how you see the world, and Eugen sees the world, and Ro sees the world, and Oliphant sees the world, and Jaz sees the world, and Sierdy sees the world, and Hrefna sees the world, etc. But the real reason the Fediverse is not safe and secure (yet), is that none of you can earn a stable and secure living working on Fediverse safety full time.🤷🏿♂️ 1/N
Hachyderm.io (hachyderm.io)
I'd say either give to one of those folks directly, or give to Nivenly.
The Nivenly Foundation
Powerful, extensible, and feature-packed frontend toolkit. Build and customize with Sass, utilize prebuilt grid system and components, and bring projects to life with powerful JavaScript plugins.
(nivenly.org)
Speaking of investment, the goal is not to create a new part of the non-profit world, where these orgs are dependent on philanthropy. The goal is to bootstrap these orgs and help them become independent, running without VC or philanthropy
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@thisismissem @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
If you get for-profit services, they will be more than aligned with the sustainability of the open source part.
For example: I already pledged to give 20% of communick's profits to the underlying projects. The only "problem" is that communick will never be profitable for as long as it's competing with large instances (hachyderm/.world/universeodon) that have no intention/plan to become proper businesses.
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@raphael @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
I'm pretty sure instances run not for profit aren't your enemy. Last I heard Masto.host was doing pretty okay. Their smallest plan is 3 times your smallest plan in cost.
It's easy as a business owner to blame others for the challenges you face in building & growing a business, it's a lot harder to raise to the challenges and reassess your decisions
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@raphael @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
Also, fwiw, those larger instances have been funding development work. Nivenly (the organisation behind hachyderm) has funded several grants and has a security bug bounty program for the fediverse that's been quietly existing for most of the year.
They also give significant product feedback & test out new things.
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@thisismissem @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
Masto.host is managed hosting, the customer gets full control over the server. This is not the same as charging per account.
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@raphael @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
That's not how your website reads. Maybe how you're positioning your business isn't right for the market that exists, it happens. There's several "pay to use" instances that are doing fine, e.g., social.coop
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Bruno Rocha ★replied to Raphael Lullis last edited by
I would pay for joining an instance if they provide me some really good advantage like (boosted search engine? Exclusive client with cool features? Useful automations...) OR if the instance is for a project/community/foundation that I support.
What is the selling point of your 29/y accounts?
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@thisismissem @iwein @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft
Organizations that provide funding for development provide a function that is orthogonal to bearing the operational costs of running an instance with many active users.
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@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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@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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@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 ★ 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 ★replied 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?