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The idea isn’t bad because it’s making people pay for stuff; it’s bad because people won’t, by and large, pay for Twitter specifically.

by tom_ 3y ago

rglullis 3y ago
They are not paying for Mastodon/Bluesky/Threads/Instagram as well.
- api 3y ago
  I sponsor Mastodon and pay for an app for it (Ivory). I would never pay for any kind of algorithm driven ad supported social media. I also pay for Kagi and would not pay for Google. They’re surveillance driven so they have their payment already.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    Unfortunately, you are in the minority. You are the exception that proves the rule. Mastodon is so poorly funded that even with 6 million users in the .social instance, they only get enough funds to pay two full-time developers, and even then the pay is ridiculously low. Gargron himself is reportedly taking 30k€/year, pre-tax, which for someone living in Germany is just a step above minimum wage.
    - api 3y ago
      Maybe so, and this is why we live in hell. Nobody pays for software unless it’s manipulative, intrusive, or addictive. If it just delivers value it has to be free. I keep coming perilously close to declaring free software a mistake, but the problem is a lot more complex than that. It’s also a result of land, expand, enshittify models.
      - barrysteve 3y ago
        because copy and paste has trained everyone to expect information for free. computing has no tools to protect software (tpm, ect not running yet) and people wondering why nobody pays? if i could copy and paste stacks of gold bars for free, i would. and i would never pay for gold bars again. valuable software has to be protected if you want to cut out the intrusion, manipulation and addiction. the missing option to protect valuable software is a big hole in the guts of computing. let free be free, let protected be protected.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  What does paid Instagram offer over the free one? Does it opt you out of ads/dark patterns/data collection?
  - rglullis 3y ago
    If you are talking about a paid alternative to Instagram, yes. I for one can offer an account at a pixelfed server for $2.00/month and no tracking.
- tom_ 3y ago
  And that is precisely why those services are not obviously thinking of abandoning their free tiers.

The idea isn’t bad because it’s making people pay for stuff; it’s bad because people won’t, by and large, pay for Twitter specifically.

by tom_ 3y ago

The idea isn’t bad because it’s making people pay for stuff; it’s bad because people won’t, by and large, pay for Twitter specifically.

rglullis 3y ago

They are not paying for Mastodon/Bluesky/Threads/Instagram as well.

api 3y ago
I sponsor Mastodon and pay for an app for it (Ivory). I would never pay for any kind of algorithm driven ad supported social media. I also pay for Kagi and would not pay for Google. They’re surveillance driven so they have their payment already.
- rglullis 3y ago
  Unfortunately, you are in the minority. You are the exception that proves the rule. Mastodon is so poorly funded that even with 6 million users in the .social instance, they only get enough funds to pay two full-time developers, and even then the pay is ridiculously low. Gargron himself is reportedly taking 30k€/year, pre-tax, which for someone living in Germany is just a step above minimum wage.
  - api 3y ago
    Maybe so, and this is why we live in hell. Nobody pays for software unless it’s manipulative, intrusive, or addictive. If it just delivers value it has to be free. I keep coming perilously close to declaring free software a mistake, but the problem is a lot more complex than that. It’s also a result of land, expand, enshittify models.
    - barrysteve 3y ago
      because copy and paste has trained everyone to expect information for free. computing has no tools to protect software (tpm, ect not running yet) and people wondering why nobody pays? if i could copy and paste stacks of gold bars for free, i would. and i would never pay for gold bars again. valuable software has to be protected if you want to cut out the intrusion, manipulation and addiction. the missing option to protect valuable software is a big hole in the guts of computing. let free be free, let protected be protected.
Nextgrid 3y ago
What does paid Instagram offer over the free one? Does it opt you out of ads/dark patterns/data collection?
- rglullis 3y ago
  If you are talking about a paid alternative to Instagram, yes. I for one can offer an account at a pixelfed server for $2.00/month and no tracking.
tom_ 3y ago
And that is precisely why those services are not obviously thinking of abandoning their free tiers.