4 ms·

> if every company that offers free services is "evil" and people do not want to pay for access to networks, how the hell is this whole thing supposed to work?

> if every company that offers free services is "evil" and people do not want to pay for access to networks, how the hell is this whole thing supposed to work? Seems pretty simple to me; cut "companies" out entirely. The problem with Twitter isn't so much paying for it as monetizing it. Monetization is an endless user-experience sinkhole that optimizes for the lowest-common-denominator and never ends. Locking users in a sinking ship is a bad business model, Twitter only got away with it because it took 10 years to sink and Dorsey had a great poker face. Platforms like Mastodon decimate this problem, for me. Instead of engineering for monetization, people optimized for user experience. Advertisements don't exist, because they harm the UX and get optimized out; you're not a competitive Mastodon server if you run ads. I've heard convincing arguements that decentralized platforms lack real-world celebrities, but I only see that as a plus in a post-Musk world.

wmf 3y ago
Mastodon servers still have to be paid for. The current martyrdom system isn't scalable or sustainable.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Oh, for sure. But they also have to compete with each other if they want users, which has so-far prevented any form of advertising on public instances. Plus, martyrdom seems to be par for the course if you're not willing to make a Facebook account. I'm perfectly content sitting opposite of Twitter, but your mileage may vary.
  - wmf 3y ago
    I meant the instance admins are martyrs because they're doing high-stakes moderation for free and they receive only abuse in return. Pitting instance admins in a race-to-the-bottom competition where they have no hope of ever being compensated is inhumane.
    - rglullis 3y ago
      This is the main reason why I refuse to open my instance and make it donation-based. I'd rather pay to have an over provisioned server for my 5 active users than having to deal with entitled "supporters" who think that their donation would give them with the right to judge me for everything I say or do.
jdougan 3y ago
> cut "companies" out entirely. As written, that is probably not possible. As long as people don't want to manage their own services someone will offer to do it for them (for some form of compensation) , and one of the corporate forms is the natural way to structure that, particularly in the presence of liability laws. I expect to eventually see a mastodon service that does do ads as I think the current system is unsustainable with current attitudes. I have no idea how they'll make ads acceptable, but I have faith in the creativity of people looking to make a steady buck. Once they have the extra income, that will make it less likely to collapse than its peers, so evolution will kick in and many will do whatever it is that stabilized the income.
rglullis 3y ago
This simply does not scale. Small instances from enthusiasts are being funded by the person/people running it, but if we assume that one "small instance" can serve up to 100 people while costing pocket change to the admin, we would need 20 million "hobbyists" running their instances if the fediverse is to become an alternative to Facebook or Instagram. Larger instances based on donations are all struggling. Fosstodon started open and donation based and promised to take any surplus and donate to the upstream projects. Their last donation was in 2021 [0]. Now they even closed down for new signups and made it invite-only. Newsie.social, an instance made for journalists have 20000 sign ups, 2300 active users and less than 2% of the active user base contributes. The admin has been pleading for support in an attempt to keep it open, but it's quite likely they will announce it will close. It's ridiculous. [0]: https://hub.fosstodon.org/finances/ https://hub.fosstodon.org/finances/
- jackvalentine 3y ago
  > This simply does not scale. I see that as a perk. The local instance I’m on is funded mostly by donations and has been for more than a year now with success - it can’t become Twitter-scale. Old forums used to be funded by selling memberships or limited ads - but the site owner was close enough to the community that they were reasonably sensitive to their needs. I’m not particularly caring about large instances. Close registration if it’s getting too big I say! That’s not a bad thing!
  - rglullis 3y ago
    From a similar discussion on Lemmy (https://communick.news/comment/420983 https://communick.news/comment/420983): I understand the sentiment, but I can’t stop feeling that it is too self-centered. I certainly agree that we do not need a billion people on the Fediverse, but at the same time I feel some moral imperative to free the billion people that are stuck on Big Tech networks, and we need to build an alternative for them.
    - jackvalentine 3y ago
      That billion people can free themselves. They don’t need us ‘enlightened saviours’ coming to tell them what they should be doing. Humans operate at community scale, not global scale. I don’t want a billion people in my community. You might think that self-centered but it allows actual community bonds to form - on my instance last month I paid the $236 that someone was in arrears for their rent because they were part of my community and in need.

wmf 3y ago

Mastodon servers still have to be paid for. The current martyrdom system isn't scalable or sustainable.

smoldesu 3y ago
Oh, for sure. But they also have to compete with each other if they want users, which has so-far prevented any form of advertising on public instances. Plus, martyrdom seems to be par for the course if you're not willing to make a Facebook account. I'm perfectly content sitting opposite of Twitter, but your mileage may vary.
- wmf 3y ago
  I meant the instance admins are martyrs because they're doing high-stakes moderation for free and they receive only abuse in return. Pitting instance admins in a race-to-the-bottom competition where they have no hope of ever being compensated is inhumane.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    This is the main reason why I refuse to open my instance and make it donation-based. I'd rather pay to have an over provisioned server for my 5 active users than having to deal with entitled "supporters" who think that their donation would give them with the right to judge me for everything I say or do.

jdougan 3y ago

> cut "companies" out entirely. As written, that is probably not possible. As long as people don't want to manage their own services someone will offer to do it for them (for some form of compensation) , and one of the corporate forms is the natural way to structure that, particularly in the presence of liability laws. I expect to eventually see a mastodon service that does do ads as I think the current system is unsustainable with current attitudes. I have no idea how they'll make ads acceptable, but I have faith in the creativity of people looking to make a steady buck. Once they have the extra income, that will make it less likely to collapse than its peers, so evolution will kick in and many will do whatever it is that stabilized the income.

rglullis 3y ago

This simply does not scale. Small instances from enthusiasts are being funded by the person/people running it, but if we assume that one "small instance" can serve up to 100 people while costing pocket change to the admin, we would need 20 million "hobbyists" running their instances if the fediverse is to become an alternative to Facebook or Instagram. Larger instances based on donations are all struggling. Fosstodon started open and donation based and promised to take any surplus and donate to the upstream projects. Their last donation was in 2021 [0]. Now they even closed down for new signups and made it invite-only. Newsie.social, an instance made for journalists have 20000 sign ups, 2300 active users and less than 2% of the active user base contributes. The admin has been pleading for support in an attempt to keep it open, but it's quite likely they will announce it will close. It's ridiculous. [0]: https://hub.fosstodon.org/finances/ https://hub.fosstodon.org/finances/

jackvalentine 3y ago
> This simply does not scale. I see that as a perk. The local instance I’m on is funded mostly by donations and has been for more than a year now with success - it can’t become Twitter-scale. Old forums used to be funded by selling memberships or limited ads - but the site owner was close enough to the community that they were reasonably sensitive to their needs. I’m not particularly caring about large instances. Close registration if it’s getting too big I say! That’s not a bad thing!
- rglullis 3y ago
  From a similar discussion on Lemmy (https://communick.news/comment/420983 https://communick.news/comment/420983): I understand the sentiment, but I can’t stop feeling that it is too self-centered. I certainly agree that we do not need a billion people on the Fediverse, but at the same time I feel some moral imperative to free the billion people that are stuck on Big Tech networks, and we need to build an alternative for them.
  - jackvalentine 3y ago
    That billion people can free themselves. They don’t need us ‘enlightened saviours’ coming to tell them what they should be doing. Humans operate at community scale, not global scale. I don’t want a billion people in my community. You might think that self-centered but it allows actual community bonds to form - on my instance last month I paid the $236 that someone was in arrears for their rent because they were part of my community and in need.