Chris TrottierSubstack is not a suitable alternative to Twitter.
If Elon Musk can buy Twitter, he can buy Substack.
However, Elon Musk cannot buy the Fediverse. No one company owns it. It is not for sale.
At this point, if a social network refuses to join the Fediverse, I’m not interested.
Anyone trying to build yet another proprietary walled garden is just a mini-Musk.
You do not need a billionaire or a VC fund to use social media.
They are just middlemen opportunists trying to insert themselves between you and your friends.
The Internet was built to make it easy for you to connect with others, and that is getting easier with protocols like ActivityPub.
You don’t need Elon Musk. You don’t need Mark Zuckerberg. You certainly don’t need any Silicon Valley tech bro to let you use social media.
To people who say that Elon Musk won't buy Substack because he could "barely afford" to buy Twitter: Substack is no unicorn.
Substack's current valuation sits at $585 million.
That might be an over-estimation because its revenue for the entirety of 2022 was probably $18.6 million.
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. He can assuredly buy Substack if he wanted it.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/28/23660473/substack-retail-investors-revenue-profit
I've worked for a social media start-up before. In fact, I was an early employee at a well known one. I know how this goes.
Founders start with the best of intentions.
But then VCs start making demands. And at that point, startups go for the fastest, easiest method to acquire revenue growth. That is, if they want to stay on board.
A good many of them take their exit as soon as it becomes available. Just look at Instagram and WhatsApp.
If Elon Musk walked into Substack's office right now (probably with a sink) and offered them $585 million to buy it, do you think their shareholders would say "No"?
Not on their life.
They would be skipping for joy. Everyone who owns equity in Substack would be popping open bottles of champagne.
Meanwhile, all those writers that Substack is paying will now be under Musk's thumb -- yet again.
This is why the Fediverse is the better choice compared to Substack.
Some folks might be thinking, “Unlike the Fediverse, Substack gives writers an opportunity to get paid.”
Not so fast.
When @TexasObserver was nearly shut down because they lacked funding for operations, they turned to the Fediverse for help.
Within 48 hours, we helped them raise $250,000 in funding—and now that 70-year-old newspaper still lives.
As a result, 17 journalists still have their jobs.
🤣
“But Elon Musk could buy all 23,000 Fediverse servers and do the same thing here!”
I assure you that my servers are not up for sale. And from speaking to numerous other admins, they won’t be selling either.
You see, for the same reason people play basketball because it’s fun—not because they want a $50 million NBA contract—many of us run and operate Fediverse servers.
But it’s amazing that some people can’t imagine doing things without a profit motive.
Imagine if people asked the silly “How do you make money?” question about other hobbies.
“You play chess. How do you make money from it?”
“You eat cheese. How do you make money from it?”
“You own a cat. How do you make money from it?”
Maybe I do these things for their own sake—because they give me joy.
The difference between Substack and my Fediverse servers is that Substack has a fiduciary duty to shareholders to generate profit.
I do not.
Mark Britten@atomicpoet On a less financial point, the issue I have with it is that it's not really comparable to #twitter , it's more like a blogging platform. Which isn't, in itself, a bad thing, but it's not a twitter replacement.
TimPlease don't follow me and "Like" my server. It's for my code backup, not your pleasure, but if there are links you like, please follow the link. I'm sure the artist would appreciate it.
Tim
tecreations.ca
🐧DaveNull🐧 ☣️pResident Evil☣@atomicpoet The other name for "shareholders" is parasites…
Aaron@devnull @atomicpoet Exactly!
Cynthia Morse Linton@devnull Not if they are activist shareholders. They can definitely be trusted to force change from the inside. @atomicpoet
@lucywildboots Parasites' role is to make as much as possible from other people's work and from the planet resources. It's litteraly their main, if not the only, reason to live·
There's no way they're going to actively make sure to "sacrifice" their profit for ethical reasons…
Being an activist and being a capitalist are mutually exclusive…
@atomicpoet And this is the bottom line. You just summed up everything that's wrong with the model of capitalism that America follows, in one thread.
Imagine if instead of having an IPO to get their payday after building a business, the founders instead sold the company to the workers or customers, and it was converted to a co-op. Suddenly the motive from start to finish becomes building value for the community, period. No more shady manipulations, where customers are frogs in a warming pot, becoming nothing more than resources to mine.
Imagine if all businesses either stayed privately owned or went this route. No more swinging, crashing stock markets. No more billionaire oligarchs living on financial rent. No more treating human beings like livestock milked for their money by strangers so far removed that they can't remember the humanity of those they are exploiting.
JasmineYou just described capitalism.
No money, you die isn't a system. It's murder. It's also the base of the capitalism pyramid scheme. Oligarchs pay us to do labor they won't then LITERALLY CHARGE US just to be ALIVE. All that "pay" just gets channelled right back to them.
@MysticaRose @atomicpoet That's exactly my point! But it's not all forms of capitalism. It's capitalism as we practice it. We can do better!
@MysticaRose @atomicpoet Your words remind me very pointedly of the "company store" and that old song, "Sixteen Tons," btw.
Exactly.
No. It's CAPITALISM. No money, you die is the core of it. The next level in the pyramid scheme is "war is good for business". Read, death = profits.
The oligarchs "pay" you to do the work they don't want to and the CHARGE you for your very SURVIVAL. That "pay" gets channelled back up to those very same oligarchs.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛@hosford42 What you are describing can be referred to as #ExitToCommunity ! Perhaps you are already aware of it, perhaps others aren't. It's a cool concept!
/cc @Marc
@hosford42 There is a series blog.opencollective.com/exit-t… by @opencollective , several others have written about it too (follow the hashtags), and there's a website e2c.how/ .
Marc@clacke is right to bring up E2C. It's an interesting attempt to align incentives in a more broadly rewarding way. If an E2C isn't valuable for its workers, it isn't valuable financially for the founder of the E2C.
NiLace@atomicpoet Even if he buys all your servers, he would be buying the hardware and maybe the admins time. For me, the differentiator here is that he would not be able to buy my own server and I retain the privilege of blocking all of his servers and continue being in the Fediverse without a trace of his decissions on any of my Fediverse services.
Troll@atomicpoet then again, if someone were to offer me $50 million to stop being a satirical online “troll”, I would seriously consider it.
@troll5 Look at this guy with big league ambitions!
@atomicpoet it’s under $5 million per follower. And I have some valuable followers!
@troll5 @atomicpoet Yeah, ok, I do a buck per , per lifetime. But maybe that's too much. If you all could settle on a coin, I could setup a payment system, but until then, not even OAUTH2.1.
Bye.
Tim
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦@atomicpoet and even if he *did* buy all existing instances, setting new ones up is trivial and migration between instances is possible, easy even. All these fedi users already understand instances, and probably understand migration.
The garden is not nearly as walled.
Also, let's put the $585m in perspective: that's ~75 times less than he paid for 
. It's about a third of 's annual interest payments.
CritteRo 🇪🇺@atomicpoet >Imagine if people asked the silly “How do you make money?” question about other hobbies.
I wish I could only imagine. I get asked the same question whenever I start a new hobby or whenever I do something for fun
Yassie > moved to 0w0.is@atomicpoet “Where’s the profit motive” mfs getting upset when I hang out with my friends without charging them for it
BorderCollieGuy@atomicpoet My partner and I own cats. Plus we run a cat boarding facility which is very profitable.
BrisVegas@atomicpoet this!!!
@BrisVegas @atomicpoet Please. Go back to reddit. Tim
Marc@atomicpoet This ✅ I blogged about this during the pandemic. Always nice to see someone share what I thought was a fringe opinion
Giles Goat@atomicpoet
I DON'T need to imagine, they already did, also add the "... but if you don't make money why you WASTE your time on .. " ..
Wait just a LITTLE longer and they'll start asking "Why don't you use ChatGTP for that ?" .. and/or why you waste time THINKING on that ?
Erm .. to LEARN something ?
I think I have a "new" reply for this ( stolen ) "We choose to do XXX and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard," ..
David 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️NB they/them@atomicpoet I get this. I create art for myself and have no intention of ever making money from my work.
william.maggoshaving a place where ideas flow freely and the best can go viral no matter what the powerful/wealthy think about them, is culturally important. what Elon claimed he believed in but has proven not to. fun, sure. but this confusion over goals imo is what lets assholes like Elon justify jokes at other people's expense. humor is necessary but there's a cruelty that then muddies the water regarding just unpopular opinions and what might be true, and ultimately deters engagement.
midwayJust for the record, if any billionaire wants to buy my instance, I’m entirely down with that.
I will then open a new one the very next day. :).
I will then open a new one the very next day. :).
@atomicpoet if he tried then I could see some people selling out, because there will always be some. He's arrogant enough to not bother trying though, IMHO.
[Yaseenist] CauseOfBSOD 
Georg Ramer@atomicpoet If Elon bought all 23,000 Mastodon Servers today, at least 23,000 new ones would pop up tomorrow.
Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL]@atomicpoet I would like to assure everyone that I would absolutely sell Chinwag for just a few million dollars without hesitation.
If anyone has a few million kicking around, please DM me. This weekend would be great, I don't have a lot on.
fulanigirl has moved@atomicpoet It's not their fault they can't imagine doing anything w/o a profit. They've been raised under predatory capitalism. It's what they know.
Riley S. FaelanThe underlying assumption here, btw, is not as much that everything has a profit motive, but that every entity has shadowy moneyed owners who can be bought out by a zillionaire against the will and interests of the people who have been visibly working for the entity.
The capitalists' euphemism for this is the vulture capital system, but in the context of other historic societies, such as Soviet Russia or Imperial Rome, it was called political patronage.
Bill Bennett@atomicpoet I’m supportive. But I’m also kind of amazed that anyone thinks operating a server is fun. To me that would be on a par with fun visits to the dentist or happy encounters with a tax auditor.
Gen X-Wing@atomicpoet He could buy them, and we could start new servers and move to them and defederate him.
What he can’t do is make me partake in his club, I won’t sit at his table.
Charlie Stross@atomicpoet @Lazarou Capitalism is a religion. Not healthy.
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈@cstross @atomicpoet I honestly think the 'Faithful' see Love as just another transaction. They keep tabs, memorise the receipts....and then wonder why the divorce papers come!
aardvark@atomicpoet I’d happily take his money then stand up all new servers.
s4if@[email protected]
Yep yep... it is fun af.. #trustme 😁😁
Context: I selfhost several instance with different #fediverse server software for fun.
Yep yep... it is fun af.. #trustme 😁😁
Context: I selfhost several instance with different #fediverse server software for fun.
Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸@atomicpoet @Grandalf I mean… If Melon WANTS to buy the 12 year old iMac server sitting beside the kitty litter for $2Million just to secure his grip on social media, I’d probably have to consider it… especially if the cat just had a huge….
Peter Brown@atomicpoet and if somebody did buy a server, all the users could immediately move to another server, or set up their own.
Pete Forsyth@atomicpoet
In that scenario, even if Elon managed to buy your server, there's nothing to prevent you (unless you sign some sort of ridiculous non-compete doc or something) to prevent you from just starting a new one and inviting your users back.
The server software is free/open source (AGPLv3).