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@alpinegreg @AllysonShaw @pluralistic

I think the Fediverse can at least solve some of the technical problems. Like we can envision a version of Mastodon that does the things that Facebook does. In fact we already have options for most of Facebook's features.

But how would you want funding and governance to work?

• Who pays for it?
• How does it get moderated?

@gatesvp @alpinegreg @AllysonShaw @pluralistic who pays for it: I think having folks pay a very small fee to pay their share of a server somewhere makes sense.

@alpinegreg @gatesvp @ClementQuinson @pluralistic a subscription model would work for a small demographic—I have no answers but am curious!

@geolaw @gatesvp @alpinegreg @AllysonShaw @pluralistic I think there is still something to be said about offering actual value and people seeing it and paying for it. Large platforms like facebook and twitter have shown people what happens when these corporations need to find money, and dgaf about their users.
Personally I would sponsor a pretty large chunk of an instance that lets me run a modern blog. I just dont know how nor where. I already pay each month for the instance Im a part of here.

@geolaw @gatesvp @alpinegreg @AllysonShaw @pluralistic another dumb thing, but... I have a stable internet access at home, so why not host stuff there. Problem is, it isnt profitable for a lot of people and puts a high requirement on skills to keep it up and running. I would pay for someone to admin the hard part, though! But afaik this model doesnt really exist, or perhaps, is too marginal.

I still havent figured out how to get rid of facebook and it's bothering me.

@ClementQuinson @geolaw @alpinegreg @AllysonShaw

This is why I ask the governance and funding question... Because it's not an obvious thing.

Clément and I are both sponsors of our instances. But we are absolutely the exception and not the rule. And that's a problem, this all costs money.

Let's face it, if we had 100 million people all carrying a $30 annual subscription fee in their hands, then this would be a very different discussion. But that's obviously not the current state...

@ClementQuinson @geolaw @alpinegreg @AllysonShaw

Clément, you talk about using your own internet bandwidth. I researched a model where we could do such a thing. Make members into nodes that also helped with DB & network traffic (see IPFS / IPVM)... But I don't know that we are there yet. Only helps mitigate some costs.

But today the only way to contribute is with money or volunteer time. And if you're coming from FB, your baseline for contribution is zero. Not the $10/year we probably need.

@AllysonShaw @ClementQuinson

I am in a similar spot with FB. I have lived many places in the last 15 years and FB is my primary connection point of a lot of the people I have met in that time.

It's not easy to pick up and move all of those connections. And Mastodon isn't really the appropriate place to move them either.

A few people have posted here with some checklists to help move yourself, but it's definitely real work to make this happen.

@gatesvp @ClementQuinson I am an immigrant in Scotland and have lived a lot of other places, too. I have given up hope that social media can help me maintain those connections, though fb should do that in theory! Still I dream of people coming over here, but there are many hurdles, none of which are the fault of the fediverse.

@gatesvp @geolaw @alpinegreg @AllysonShaw to me, the paying for services part could indeed be an advantage fromthe end users' perspective. I guess that the fediverse as a whole is a bit confusing for non techies, and so having companies/organisations that would package it nicely for my grandma, with a yearly pricetag, could IMO help with adoption.
I wonder how much an average mastodon/fedibook/pixelfed user "costs" per year, and so how much such an org should charge to operate.

@ClementQuinson @gatesvp @geolaw @alpinegreg I have been thinking about this as well, Clément. Some people will pay for a service--especially if it functions without ads, etc. and is accessible (easy to understand for the tech-averse). It would be great for instance admins to discuss this--not as a business model per say but a practical mode of delivery to a wider audience.

@AllysonShaw @gatesvp @geolaw @alpinegreg I'm 100% with you here. I know I would love to find something like that.
As a french speaker I know of chatons.org and framasoft.org but, afaik, they are reluctant to becoming too large and thus dont really offer a complete alternative to google and meta. In a way that makes sense (they're true to their ideals), BUT I'd rather have @Framasoft be the non-profit structure that manages my digital life than meta or google.
Ah, nerd activists and money :)

@gatesvp @geolaw @ClementQuinson @alpinegreg Thanks, Gaëtan--this can only change as the Fediverse grows, right? Maybe we all need to start having conversations about the costs/value of social media going forward and what viable growth might look like?

@AllysonShaw @geolaw @ClementQuinson @alpinegreg

Until recently, there was a bot that tracked Mastodon growth, growing at a few thousand per day. 15M users.
https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount/113270983367781353

Mastodon isn't really growing much. New Fediverse apps are happening, but they have the same governance and funding issues.

I think having conversations with people is what gets this transition unstuck. But we need a real sea change in people's willingness to care for and pay for the tech they use. That's hard.

@gatesvp @AllysonShaw @geolaw @alpinegreg IMO some, and I would argue, enough members would be willing to pay.
In my case, Im on fosstodon and they seem to be doing fine financially (I support them on Patreon, lowest tier of 2€/month).

I had a look around, for example mastodon.social with 320k users is quite large, seems to get 20k/month from 6k people on patreon ; if I extrapolate fosstodon operating costs (2k/month, $0.1/month/user), it looks like they're 2/3 funded.

Not THAT bad, right?

@ClementQuinson @alpinegreg @gatesvp @geolaw yes! And the more we invest in this both financially and energetically and intellectually, the more stable and exciting it becomes!

@geolaw @gatesvp @ClementQuinson @alpinegreg exactly- those of us who see the value and can pay will make it easier for those who can’t pay or initially don’t see the value!

@AllysonShaw @geolaw @gatesvp @alpinegreg just looks like that particular bot broke down somehow in the recent past. There are others around! That's one downside of decentralised platforms there aren't easy, centralised metrics :)

From my own limited experience, it is a "slow" grow, but a steady one! Which is indeed good. And I definitely want to move more and more of my socials to the fediverse, and figure out how to bring more folks along!

@geolaw @alpinegreg @ClementQuinson @gatesvp let’s do it together!

@AllysonShaw @geolaw @alpinegreg @gatesvp in that spirir, I just pledged some €€€ for the pixelfed kickstarter - I would have preferred clearer governance and goals description, but let's just say even if not much comes out of it, it still sends a nice signal if the campaign is very successful!

@alpinegreg @pluralistic Morning tea is everything! I think the average Meta user wouldn't even know how their 'feed' is delivered. In the past, people have tried to get me to use RSS feeds and I resisted until I found RSS Parrot here--which I found really easy to use because the instructions were so clear.