Esk 🐌⚡💜 (@[email protected])
hachyderm.io
@thisismissem @mekkaokereke @dma so stats, based on dec 2024 exit run rate (rounded for simplicity): #hachyderm costs about $1600/mo to run. this is up somewhat, as we've started to add some infra as part of our resilience plan announced in nov. we currently have about: - 55000 users - 9700 MAU - 3.7M toots yielding: - $.03/user/mo - $.16/active user/mo - $.0004/toot from a raw compute & storage perspective. again, this is based on 100% volunteer work. today, our mods and infra folk graciously donate their time to keep this thing going. hypothetically, if we paid them, say, $120k USD/yr (chose this to make the math cleaner), that would add $10k/person/mo to the cost. if we go with a staff of eight (mix of mod & infra), that adds $80k/mo to the run rate, for a total of $81,600/mo, yielding: - $1.48/user/mo - $8.41/active user/mo - the toot figure is silly, so i'm not calculating it again :blobfoxlaugh: orders of magnitude of difference. we could argue about the staff size - i went with roughly what we have today and assumed we made everyone full time so they could hachy for 32/hr/wk vs. calculating the number of hours we actually work. e.g. maybe we could it out at ~$4.50/user/mo, but still a multiple orders of magnitude bump from the raw infra cost.
  • rglullis@communick.newsOPEnglish
    0·
    5 hours ago

    Content creators get paid via Patreon.

    To get to the point where creators can get meaningful in income from Patreon, they already spent years producing content on YouTube or some other mainstream channel.

    And even then, they still stay on YouTube because they get more money from YT (or their sponsorship deals, which is contingent on the size of their audience and thus dependent on YT) than from their supporters.

    It is closer to something like https://gnucash.org/ than to a Linux distribution.

    Funny you mention gnucash, because it is going around for 20+ years, yet it still has not made a dent on Intuit business. Even after all this time, anyone in the US who needs to file taxes still pays through the nose for QuickBooks.

    So, yes, the fact that it exists does not mean that it is successful. And its failure is both due to a lack of ambition ( no one there pushing for ways to grow the organization) and for this cultural issue where the commons are not willing to financially support R&D if they don’t have to.

    • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      5 hours ago

      To get to the point where creators can get meaningful in income from Patreon, they already spent years producing content on YouTube or some other mainstream channel.

      And even then, they still stay on YouTube because they get more money from YT (or their sponsorship deals, which is contingent on the size of their audience and thus dependent on YT) than from their supporters.

      Indeed, so how would you plan to move enough people to PeerTube for this to change? As long as Youtube is a viable product, there is no real space for any other video website.

      Funny you mention gnucash, because it is going around for 20+ years, yet it still has not made a dent on Intuit business. Even after all this time, anyone in the US who needs to file taxes still pays through the nose for QuickBooks.

      Linux has been around for 30+ years, is it making a dent on Microsoft and Apple’s business for personal computers?

      So, yes, the fact that it exists does not mean that it is successful. And its failure is both due to a lack of ambition ( no one there pushing for ways to grow the organization) and for this cultural issue where the commons are not willing to financially support R&D if they don’t have to.

      Could you show me an example in the tech/dev/opensource space where end users countered the “tragedy of the commons”? Because after discussing all this time with you, it seems more due to human nature than anything else.

      • rglullis@communick.newsOPEnglish
        0·
        4 hours ago

        Linux has been around for 30+ years, is it making a dent on Microsoft and Apple’s business for personal computers?

        Yes! Android is Linux based and dominates market share worldwide.

        For desktop, Linux has 4-5% of usage share worldwide, going up to 13% in India. If you include ChromeOS (which is also Linux based) the figures get close to 10% worldwide. Also, the fact that companies like Dell and HP have Linux offerings available give them bargaining power against Microsoft, which certainly counts as “creating a dent on their business”.

        Because after discussing all this time with you, it seems more due to human nature than anything else.

        It’s not “human nature”. It’s a cultural issue. High-trust societies (e.g, the Japanese) are a lot more inclined to support the commons even when not directly required to do so. Low-trust, heterogenous societies become increasingly reluctant to help others unless coerced by authority or when they see direct personal benefit.

        Also, blaming things on “human nature” is a cop-out. It removes agency from individuals and leads us to apathy. It’s the exact kind of thing that powerful figures wants us to feel.

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgEnglish
          0·
          4 hours ago

          Yes! Android is Linux based and dominates market share worldwide.

          Android is led by Google, with all their resources, both in terms of devs and money.

          Android is an open source operating system for mobile devices and a corresponding open source project led by Google

          https://source.android.com/

          Also, the fact that companies like Dell and HP have Linux offerings available give them bargaining power against Microsoft, which certainly counts as “creating a dent on their business”.

          It comes back to what I said before: Linux and Android are useful to companies because they can use it, especially in the case of Google, it allowed them to compete with Apple in the mobile OS market, with the play stores and ad revenues.

          Every time you buy an app or game on the Play Store, the total amount is split between Google and the developer. The exact percentage varies, but Google takes a minimum of 15% in exchange for hosting the app and serving it to users.

          https://www.androidauthority.com/how-does-google-make-money-from-android-669008/

          What interest would any private company to invest in a Reddit-clone? Reddit itself had to enshittify to hell to make profit.

          High-trust societies (e.g, the Japanese) are a lot more inclined to support the commons even when not directly required to do so. Low-trust, heterogenous societies become increasingly reluctant to help others unless coerced by authority or when they see direct personal benefit.

          Where is the Japanese open-source Reddit clone? You also haven’t provided the example I asked above about an open-source project where end users countered the “tragedy of the commons”.

          Also, blaming things on “human nature” is a cop-out. It removes agency from individuals and leads us to apathy.

          Disregarding human nature leads to unrealistic expectations. I’ll take an example I know well as I post a lot around here.

          When I post to a community, I do not expect anything in exchange. I am aware of the 1-9-90 rule , and I know that due to the current population of Lemmy, I won’t find that many other people posting. But that’s okay, I’m fine with that, and I know that over time some other people might come, first to comment, then to post themselves.

          Now if I completely refuted that rule, I would be very frustrated. “How come that in a community with 2600 active users per month I am the only one posting?”. I would start making meta post, calling out people “You should post more if you want the community to survive! You not posting is hypocritical as you do not put your time and energy in the platform but just want to use it!”. And that would probably chase people away, without making them post more.