3 ms·
> It turns into a utility, like Wikipedia, or OpenStreetMap. Not all that provides value generates profit, hence the need for a different model. The only conce
by KirinDave 10y ago
> It turns into a utility, like Wikipedia, or OpenStreetMap. Not all that provides value generates profit, hence the need for a different model.
The only conceivable reason it would is if individual providers found value data mining it.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoOpenStreetMap infrastructure only costs $200K/year to run. A microblogging platform can't come up with $200K/year?
- coldtea 10y agoYou make it sound trivial. Where would it come up with $200/K year?
- toomuchtodo 10y agoI'd propose crowdfunding the first $200k to gauge interest before committing resources, and then move to a subscription model ($1-5/user/year). WhatsApp had success at that price point, which leads me to believe $1/year would not be a hard sell for those interested in an ongoing microblogging platform. Note: Twitter has ~313 million active monthly users. Only 0.0006 percent of those users would need to find interest in this sort of new platform for it to be viable (at the price point I mention above).
- coldtea 10y ago>which leads me to believe $1/year would not be a hard sell for those interested in an ongoing microblogging platform. That's the hard part. Why would they be interested? There are tons of microblogging platforms available.
- KirinDave 10y agoBut twitter has a global timeline, spends lots of money on user acquisition and partnerships with major corporations to broadcast and manage events. Even if we assume that $200m/yr from OSM (which has a much easier job than Twitter, scaling) is reasonable, this new system people are proposing lacks a lot of fundamental discovery features that make Twitter valuable. And yet again, even if they are addressed then this means many more people would need to pitch in for the initial customer acquisition and community building. I know many people at Twitter who labor to do exactly that sort of thing to this very day. People buidling these networks think their technology is what's valuable, and there is a threshold of scale you have to meet (which btw, I do not think the projects involved here have demonstrated), but after that it's the community that has the real value. My experience with Mastodon is a blank screen with a single message from me, "I wonder how I meet people here?" Even the word "microblogging" captures fundamentally the wrong idea about what drives the core of twitter's community and engagement.
- catdog 10y agoDonations more or less. Also such things scale down very well, you can start with a small server and a few users costing next to nothing.