@nixCraft

The disdain for anyone that makes money through content online, is palpable. I'm not trying to change your opinion on that. I'm just pointing it out.

Going viral doesn't mean gaming the system. Most content goes viral because it is novel, entertaining, and fun.

And as I've said on here many, many times, the most viewed content on social media by far isn't angry content. It's happy/funny content. Twitter and 4chan are miserable places. TikTok and Instagram are happier places.

@nixCraft

I see a lot of replies of the form:

"You can make money on Mastodon! You just have to do A, B, and C! It works!"

And:

"We don't want influencers on Mastodon."

The thing I find funny about the "You can make money on Mastodon!" claim, is that it's almost always proclaimed by Mastodon dudes that don't make any money through their social media content, talking about people that do make money on their social media content. 0% experience, 100% confidence.🙂🙃

2/N

@april @nixCraft

I've seen authors get roasted on here for promoting their own books.

I've seen server admins get insulted for suggesting moving to a subscription model rather than a donation model.

I haven't seen many (any?) examples of people being financially successful on Mastodon with a "here's how I did it!" tutorial with real numbers. I just see vague hand-wavings about "It's totally possible!" but when I ask for concrete examples, it gets real quiet. 🤷🏿‍♂️

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/113175911162464927

@mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft I'm fairly financially successful with monetization on Mastodon, and do publish figures (but it's been a while since I've written an updated article)

YTD I've made €7,713.27 in gross revenue from the community, or between €500-1500 a month. That's across 3 channels, excluding GitHub Sponsors.

Last year was €8,497.03 from supporters, averaging €40 per transaction.

@thisismissem @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft

I hope you do realize that this is less than minimum wage? How much was that per hour of work?

Can you honestly say that this is "financial success" and that it could be emulated by others if one could make more money delivering food and biking around the city?

@raphael @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft

I've only been tracking open-source contributions in terms of hours since the Q2 of this year. This year so far I have done 184 hours of work on open-source, of which 21.50 hours were funded separately and 8 hours of admin work.

I fully agree that the community support I receive is currently well below minimum wage, which is why I'm trying to increase that income.

I've also done a lot of freelance work to make ends meet, which balanced things out.

@raphael @mekkaokereke @april @nixCraft

As for is this "financial success", well, it's my full time job, I have no other employment besides the community funding, grants, and freelance work.

I don't work for any for-profit company. I meet my needs.

Note: I'm excluding from those numbers the grants and freelance work, which is the lions share of my income.

@thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft

Hot take:
People think that the Fediverse isn't safe(yet) because of slight differences between how you see the world, and Eugen sees the world, and Ro sees the world, and Oliphant sees the world, and Jaz sees the world, and Sierdy sees the world, and Hrefna sees the world, etc.

But the real reason the Fediverse is not safe and secure (yet), is that none of you can earn a stable and secure living working on Fediverse safety full time.🤷🏿‍♂️

1/N

@thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft

I am profoundly uninterested in giving my hot take nitpicking ideas on how any of you should be thinking about safety. And I don't think we want or need consensus.

I am deeply interested in how we change state to where you all can earn a living working on this stuff full-time, in a way that avoids the usual "money with downsides and baggage" like VC money, or becoming dependent on wealthy benefactors who may change their minds (eg Big Tech grants).

2/2

@mekkaokereke @raphael @april @nixCraft for full disclosure, my total revenue year to date, excluding open/future invoices is €44,960 with €4,210.61 in expenses.

So I have made a decent income for a developer based in Germany, where a less-experienced developer would make €40-45k, and experienced developers would be €60-90k.

That's including freelance contracts, bug bounties, grants, etc.

@mekkaokereke @raphael @april @nixCraft

But yeah, the Fediverse as a whole is extremely underfunded, and that only changes with people wanting to say “I value this and I want to fund it's existence”

@thisismissem

I value the Fediverse and want to fund its existence. I don't want to simply set money on fire. What are my options?

My charity budget is completely allocated. My investment budget is not.

#asking_for_a_friend

I think that's a critical challenge, if someone solves that without breaking the ideals, it would be beyond awesome.

@mekkaokereke @raphael @april @nixCraft

@iwein @thisismissem @raphael @april @nixCraft

The Nivenly Foundation has given grants to many of the folk I mentioned in this post. ♥️👍🏿

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/113177194652670163

I'd say either give to one of those folks directly, or give to Nivenly.

https://nivenly.org

Speaking of investment, the goal is not to create a new part of the non-profit world, where these orgs are dependent on philanthropy. The goal is to bootstrap these orgs and help them become independent, running without VC or philanthropy