4 ms·

<< Elon expects people to pay £100 a year for a social media site in the midst of a Cost of Living crisis. Honestly, this may be one of the good things he did.

<< Elon expects people to pay £100 a year for a social media site in the midst of a Cost of Living crisis. Honestly, this may be one of the good things he did. The entire population has gotten way too comfortable with free and it would be ideal if we could get away from this model.

tentacleuno 3y ago
While I agree that the free model is unsustainable, there are better ways than charging £10/mo for one social media site. A lot of people are struggling at the moment.
- stormfather 3y ago
  What would you suggest? Genuinely curious
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    Much of the Fediverse operates under a “pay what you can” model, and it seems plenty sustainable to me.
    - rglullis 3y ago
      It's not. None of the donation-based instances are in the black, if you factor in the cost of the admins and moderators. Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because it became too big for its own sake, the admin couldn't handle anymore then shuts it down. Much like any tech company, hardware and operational costs are a small fraction of the total expenses.
      - wizzwizz4 3y ago
        > if you factor in the cost of the admins and moderators It is not possible to factor that “cost” in. They're volunteers: they're donating their time, and their time has no market value. Electricity, however, does. > Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because Every other month there is a big website going offline. A big social group disbanding. This is the normal way of things: human social structures don't endure like friendships do.
        rglullis 3y ago
        All of that is fine and good if we were talking about servers that were made for 100-200 people. This is not the case. When we are talking about servers that are house as many people as a large village, we are way past the realm of "community". > human social structures don't endure like friendships do IOW, the donation-based instances are not sustainable. If you want to have a service that you can rely on, you will need to resort to a professional service.
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        Nothing is indefinitely sustainable, and businesses are no exception. When the people involved don't want to do it any more, you have the same problem, whether it's volunteers volunteering, or professionals professionaling.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Twitter isn’t exactly a mandatory good.
rglullis 3y ago
If I had a dollar for everyone that say this, I would have a lot more than the $20/year I am getting from my only two customers on my mastodon instance.
conradfr 3y ago
Should HN limits the ability to comments only to paying visitors?
- rglullis 3y ago
  Is HN funded by ads? Is there a paid version of it?
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    HN is a sort of ad. This place was made as a recruitment funnel for a VC firm. Also there are occasionally overt ads for companies funded by said VC firm inserted into the list on the front page. You can recognize these because they have the comment sections disabled.
    - rglullis 3y ago
      None of the YC companies pay for the job listings. So no, HN by itself is not a business, so it makes no sense to debate whether it "ad-funded" or not. The fact that there is someone with deep pockets that see this whole network as an opportunity for building their branding does not mean that they look at a balance sheet, or find "advertisers" in case their fund makes an expected loss, or anything like that.
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        HN is funded as an ad.
        rglullis 3y ago
        I understand what you are trying to say, but it makes absolutely no sense and it's terrible word-thinking. Let me repeat. HN, by itself, is not a business. It is pointless to talk about its "business model", "funding", "revenue" or whether is breaks even or not. HN is not a core part of YC. Twitter/Facebook/Reddit are at its core social media networks. They wouldn't exist as businesses if they are not expecting to get any type of revenue based on their social media offering. There is no way to compare any of them with HN.
numpad0 3y ago
Took me few minutes to find this one[1]. Looks like the pricing was $50/yr for full feature, with free plan for up to 40 following. Over 110k users at some point. Shut down in 2017. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net

tentacleuno 3y ago

While I agree that the free model is unsustainable, there are better ways than charging £10/mo for one social media site. A lot of people are struggling at the moment.

stormfather 3y ago
What would you suggest? Genuinely curious
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  Much of the Fediverse operates under a “pay what you can” model, and it seems plenty sustainable to me.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    It's not. None of the donation-based instances are in the black, if you factor in the cost of the admins and moderators. Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because it became too big for its own sake, the admin couldn't handle anymore then shuts it down. Much like any tech company, hardware and operational costs are a small fraction of the total expenses.
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      > if you factor in the cost of the admins and moderators It is not possible to factor that “cost” in. They're volunteers: they're donating their time, and their time has no market value. Electricity, however, does. > Every other month there is a big Mastodon instance going offline because Every other month there is a big website going offline. A big social group disbanding. This is the normal way of things: human social structures don't endure like friendships do.
      - rglullis 3y ago
        All of that is fine and good if we were talking about servers that were made for 100-200 people. This is not the case. When we are talking about servers that are house as many people as a large village, we are way past the realm of "community". > human social structures don't endure like friendships do IOW, the donation-based instances are not sustainable. If you want to have a service that you can rely on, you will need to resort to a professional service.
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        Nothing is indefinitely sustainable, and businesses are no exception. When the people involved don't want to do it any more, you have the same problem, whether it's volunteers volunteering, or professionals professionaling.
zeroonetwothree 3y ago
Twitter isn’t exactly a mandatory good.

rglullis 3y ago

If I had a dollar for everyone that say this, I would have a lot more than the $20/year I am getting from my only two customers on my mastodon instance.

conradfr 3y ago

Should HN limits the ability to comments only to paying visitors?

rglullis 3y ago
Is HN funded by ads? Is there a paid version of it?
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  HN is a sort of ad. This place was made as a recruitment funnel for a VC firm. Also there are occasionally overt ads for companies funded by said VC firm inserted into the list on the front page. You can recognize these because they have the comment sections disabled.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    None of the YC companies pay for the job listings. So no, HN by itself is not a business, so it makes no sense to debate whether it "ad-funded" or not. The fact that there is someone with deep pockets that see this whole network as an opportunity for building their branding does not mean that they look at a balance sheet, or find "advertisers" in case their fund makes an expected loss, or anything like that.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      HN is funded as an ad.
      - rglullis 3y ago
        I understand what you are trying to say, but it makes absolutely no sense and it's terrible word-thinking. Let me repeat. HN, by itself, is not a business. It is pointless to talk about its "business model", "funding", "revenue" or whether is breaks even or not. HN is not a core part of YC. Twitter/Facebook/Reddit are at its core social media networks. They wouldn't exist as businesses if they are not expecting to get any type of revenue based on their social media offering. There is no way to compare any of them with HN.

numpad0 3y ago

Took me few minutes to find this one[1]. Looks like the pricing was $50/yr for full feature, with free plan for up to 40 following. Over 110k users at some point. Shut down in 2017. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/App.net