Mastodon has a new plan to make money: Hosting and support services for the open social web
Mastodon launches hosting and support services to generate revenue and expand the open social web.
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I would love to see hosts start offering subscription based instances and do things like paying for regular auditing of their infrastructure to give us some assurance that our data is actually secure.
I'd legitimately pay for that.
I would love to see hosts start offering subscription based instances
Communick offers access to Mastodon, Lemmy, Funkwhale and Matrix for $29/year
I’d legitimately pay for that.
How much? "Regular auditing of the infrastructure" seems like a very enterprise-y thing to expect from a basic SaaS.
Regular auditing of the infrastructure" seems like a very enterprise-y thing to expect from a basic SaaS.
That's the entire point. Offer a premium service when compared to the alternatives and you get to bring in revenue.
Currently, every instance essentially makes a pinky promise that our data isn't being used maliciously. An audit provides assurances they are.
You didn't respond the second part: how much are you willing to pay for this? Anything less than $100k/year and I will guarantee you there is no serious provider who will care about being certified for it, and any who is willing to pay that much money surely will be better off by running their instance on their own.
Of course I didn't respond to it. Because it has nothing to do with my point. Im not going to go out there and do extensive business research just to satisfy your weird demand.
It's something I'd like to see someone take on. It's something I'd wager other people would like to see take on. The economic viability I leave to anyone that wants to take it on.
I'm not going to go out there and do extensive business research
I didn't ask you to do any research. You said "I'd legitimately would pay for it." and I asked one simple question: how much?
The economic viability I leave to anyone that wants to take it on.
This attitude right here is why the Fediverse is bound to stay small and amateurish. Everyone is just focused on keeping their own little pipe dreams and wishing that someone else to take on the sacrifice to do these gigantic efforts without expecting any reward.
I want a kebab shop down the street. You gonna demand I tell you how much I'd pay for a kebab and then wildly insult the community for not doing it themselves?
without any reward
It is called a business. Someone sees a potential opportunity (through, i dunno. People talking about how much they'd like it), does the research, determines if it's a viable investment on their part, and either starts it up or doesn't.
I want a kebab shop down the street. You gonna demand I tell you how much I’d pay for a kebab
No, I will look at kebab shops in your area and see how much they are charging, and I will check if their operation is actually profitable (instead of being a front for someone who needs to launder money) and I will see if they have enough customers paying the asking price. If the math checks out and if I see an opportunity for the market, then I'd go invest time and resources to open a shop there.
There is no such thing for "hosting providers that have been audited and can certify that the data is secured and properly managed". And given you are the first person saying "I'd pay for that", why do you think is somehow offensive to be asked "How much?"
Someone sees a potential opportunity (...) does the research,
Yeah, part of the research is exactly going to potential customers and asking how much are you willing to pay for this?.
Seriously, I do not get what is so weird about asking it.
Well I'm glad you would go into the depth of researching the economic viability of something when you think "I'd like to have this amenity".
But I don't. Because why the fuck would I?
If someone wants to go through the work of researching the costs of setting up such a service, layout the costs, and make some proposals and how much they'd need to charge to the community I'd happily contribute.
Until then....dude you took an offhand "Hey I'd like to see something like this" and turned it into some weird obsession with making me name how much i'd spend on something.
In case you didn't notice, I have a hosting business. This is why I'm "obsessed" in figuring out how much someone would pay for it, if they were serious about what they are asking.
By asking you "how much would you pay?", I'm trying to gauge how serious you are about it. Your refusal to go ahead and name any amount for something that you said "I'd pay for that" shows me that you are not serious about it and therefore a bad idea.
No, I didn't. Probably because you never said you did. Weird how that works.
Now, had you said "Hey, I run a business, something like this would probably cost X per year and I think I would have Y users. Which would mean I'd minimally have to charge Z to make this viable" I probably would have given my input.