I just got called a brat on #Tumblr because I pointed out that #SimplyPlural was handled poorly. Like, the person's arguments was that it was a passion project, the dev couldn't afford to hire anyone, and that they don't owe anyone happiness. This is bullsh!t for multiple reasons.

For one, Apparyllis formed a company for this in 2021 and had a paying customer base. It kinda stops being just a passion project when you literally have users paying for your service. They had donations, a Patreon, a subscription service, and backing from organizations like The Plural Association.

Secondly, I heard they couldn't do volunteers because they legally are not allowed to handle user data. There's multiple points to this. For one, what data was Simply Plural storing where they couldn't have volunteers touch user data? Why was that data being stored unencrypted? Additionally, why couldn't volunteers just handle tasks that didn't require touching that data?

Then there's the fact that despite 500,000 users, and all the income streams I mentioned, they somehow were only breaking even. Even if only 1% of users donated a dollar a month, that's still 60,000$ a year. How much data were they storing for costs to be that high??? You'd think they were storing games or video, not text data and profile pictures. It was only one dev who wasn't even working full-time, so they didn't have to dish out paychecks, so the only money sink could've been server costs. Like, excuse me for being skeptical that an app with all those income streams and a single dev somehow consumes 5 figures a month for an app like this.

Thirdly, sure, the dev has the right to close the app down whenever, but if they didn't want to handle such a major responsibility, they should've stopped it before it got to this point. Apparyllis had several years to realize that this app was becoming too much for them. Instead, they waited until they had 500,000 users and were completely burnt out on the project. It's the worst of both worlds. I'm glad they're refunding patrons and subscribers, though.

But yeah, this project just... was not handled well, and I don't think it's being a brat to criticize that. I feel like this whole situation was preventable, and we know it is because apps like #Pluralkit are able to exist, be paid for, and have multiple developers.

I just hope whatever alternative crops up learns from Apparyllis's mistakes.

#Plurality #Plural #Critique #ActuallyPlural #Tulpamancy #App #LongPost

I developed & maintained pluralkit.py, the Python API wrapper for #PluralKit, but I decided to move off #Discord and GitHub several months ago. And anyway, I am busier than ought to be possible...

I asked on the PluralKit server if anyone was interested in taking it over, but no takers. Maybe I'd have better luck asking on Fedi? (Then again, maybe now is a bad time to be asking for others to commit to staying on Discord.)

Boosts appreciated.

https://github.com/almonds0166/pluralkit.py

with all the chatter about #Discord alternatives I have seen so far zero discussion on an important point: how many, if any, of the proposed alternatives have API hooks for creating bots?

#PluralKit, which I use daily, is implemented as a bot on Discord, and there's numerous other utility bots that it will be a pity to leave behind. What Discord replacements might be able to replace bots?

What if PluralKit... but for fedi platforms like Mastodon?   

(i.e., not having to switch accounts to post as a specific headmate)

#plural #plurality #PluralKit #ThinkingOutLoud

me: "pk;ap"
@jkap: "not what im called"

#chost #pluralkit

🎊 Tadaaaa 🎊

#TheBeebzSys #Pluralkit

I love #PluralKit. It’s so useful. My system has been using it for a couple months now, I think, and it’s so nice to be able to ask it what percent of the time I’ve been fronting the past week.

70% of the time we’ve been awake, apparently. Way more than is healthy for me! Time to see if I can get someone else to front.

(If you don’t know what PluralKit is, it’s a Discord bot that logs switches in plural systems and lets you send messages as yourself while using a shared account. So nice.)

Switchy Setup% (7+skins) Speedrun in 1:06 [real]

#plurality #pluralgang #moddedminecraft #minecraft #pluralkit #switchy

What's the point in making pluralkit for minecraft if you can't set it up in 16 seconds using pk;export

#plurality #pluralgang #moddedminecraft #minecraft #pluralkit #switchy