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Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.4.0-nightly.2025-03-25

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Raphael Lullis

How much would you be willing to invest in a Fediverse project that was set out to compete with Threads and Bluesky?

"Success" here would mean that this project has at least 50 million active users around the world.

Please boost for reach

· 48 people · Closed
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bumblefudge

@raphael capitalism is profit-maximization -- thus johannes' apt point that people often donate to or overpay for services they trust not to be profit-maximizing from trustful foundation-like groups of people :D

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bumblefudge

@raphael to put it another way, i actually think fediverse and capitalism don't mix, but i'd still pay 100/yr for an account on a server that reinvents all its excess revenue in open-source contributions, for example.

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Raphael Lullis

@by_caballero

I'm all for contributing back to projects (E.g, I pledged to give 20% of Communick's profits to the Fediverse projects), but I am not sure if that could be done *without* market dynamics.

Like, how can we define "excess revenue"? Should we account the work of instance admins as expenses? What about moderators?

Who would determine the fair wage for this work, if not via the price discovery mechanism that capitalism can provide?

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bumblefudge

@raphael you don't have to throw out the entire market baby with the profit-maximizing backwater, was my point. if all labor is paid at rates transparent and public you don't need to pay "market rates", you just need to pay something sustainable and acceptable to all parties, ideally decided transparently and updated over time in a public process. that's not exactly outside of price discovery but it's at least not coupled tightly to it.

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Scott M. Stolz
@bumblefudge You are thinking of Wall Street. Most operations never make a profit. All of the money that comes in goes out. That is why in economics, they consider zero to be the normal profit.

Normal profit = total revenue – total costs

If the money is reinvested in the operation, there is no profit motive. This can even be enforced in the charter or articles of organization or incorporation.
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bumblefudge

@scott yes, sounds good. I'm a huge fan of coops, public benefit corps, nonstock corps, anything that can't be bought out and forced to ve profitable. I think most fedi folks who answered "keep capitalism out of fedi" would come around to most of those profit-resistant strategies. most capitalism haters have never even heard of most of them-- it's an education problem as much as an ideological one.

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Scott M. Stolz
@bumblefudge Profit isn't a bad thing. Greed is a bad thing. Every employee I know wants to make more money (profit) for the work they do. It is what motivates people to be more productive or find a place where they are treated better. The problem is when people prioritize money over people. That is the real sickness. So I don't mind a small business operating a fediverse server. The owner put in free labor and money to launch it, so they deserve to be paid back. But we do have to make sure the greedy who are (knowingly or unknowingly) willing to kill the golden goose don't take control. They are the real problem.
bumblefudge

@scott I don't consider wages (even above market ones) profit. profit is what you extract from the wages of others by owning the business

Nov 26, 2024, 02:44 PM·Public·Elk
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Scott M. Stolz
@bumblefudge Regardless of definition, the same human desire is at play. People are economic creatures. They tend to do what is most economical for themselves, their family, and their tribe. however you want to define it. Other factors are at play, obviously. But we can't deny that economics is a factor.
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Raphael Lullis

@by_caballero @scott

What would you say of startups that go for years paying its employees but never make any revenue? This is the majority of companies funded by VCs, what is the "profit" here?

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Scott M. Stolz
@Raphael Lullis Considering that the VCs eventually want profit, I would say they are profit-seeking enterprises. The problem is when investors get impatient and start trying to squeeze every single drop of revenue out of people. This can be partially mitigated by becoming a public benefit corporation, but that won't protect you when a majority of your owners are VCs. It can also be mitigated by how the deals are structured. For example, giving them a reasonable rate of return, but once they are paid back, with their profit, they no longer can demand more and more money. In theory, you could create a VC funded cooperative, with the VC money being treated like a loan. It is all how you structure it.
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