Mastodawn

Felix Hlatky Nov 18

Hi! Today is my first official day as the Executive Director of Mastodon, replacing @Gargron as CEO. I joined the Mastodon team more than 5 years ago, mostly working for Mastodon in the evenings on top of a 120% day job. I was the driving force behind the incorporation of the German non-profit, am a co-founder of the US 501c3 non-profit, and I have contributed to most of the fundraising success, which allowed us to expand the team.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

I’m humbled to be given this opportunity and want to tell you a bit more about myself and how I think about the future of Mastodon and the Fediverse. I have a business and finance background. I have worked for technology companies my whole career but have become increasingly tired of the extractive venture capital model of financing them, which only works for the rare outliers and seemingly never leads to the best product humans deserve.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

Mastodon and the Fediverse matter to me because they present a truly viable alternative to this model, by showing its users no advertisement, respecting users’ privacy, focussing on keeping users safe, and allowing them to connect to the Fediverse and beyond rather than putting them into a digital prison to extract as much metadata about them to please advertisers.
(3/13)

Felix Hlatky Nov 18

My vision for Mastodon is a different direction than all previous attempts at social media, by focussing on community ownership, Trust & Safety features, slow user & server growth, and financial sustainability - for the non-profit project, the server administrators, the moderators, and creators in the Fediverse. I’m thrilled to have @haubles as Community Director and @renchap as Technical Director on my side in making this vision a reality.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

My personal heroes and projects I admire are @signalapp @Mer__edith @torproject @gnome @thunderbird @ryanleesipes . I’d much rather have Mastodon be inspired by the contributions of these people and projects to the FOSS and non-profit technology world than trying to rebuild early Twitter.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

I have huge respect for everyone contributing to the Fediverse: the larger-than-life architects like @cwebber @evan (without whom we would literally all not be here), implementers like @dansup bringing photo & video to it, new projects like @newsmast @michael @FreddieJ @saskia @bonfire @ivan @mayel orgs like @Flipboard @mike @john @ghost @activitypub.blog @pfefferle bringing the media over to the Fediverse, and @rileytestut @altstore for trying out completely new things.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

Many of us would also not be here if it weren’t for patient and forward thinking people in media and civil society like @Sarahp @laurenshof @leonido @janboehm @markus_netzpolitik @samvie @Sascha @melaniebartos
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

Thanks to amazing people like
@jaz @iftas @swf @mallory @bjoernsta @j12t we can see through topics larger than us related to policy, regulation, protocol development as well as how to deal with spam attacks, how to design a safer product for everyone, and how to deal with occasional interpersonal conflicts in our beautiful part of the internet.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

I want to send my heartfelt thanks @karienbez @alshafei for their wisdom and emotional support during this crazy journey so far, to @codinghorror @biz for your visionary strategic & financial support without which this restructuring would not have been possible, and to the team of Paul Hastings for your pro-bono legal advice.
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Felix Hlatky Nov 18

Thanks @Gargron for allowing us to do this the pure non-profit and FOSS way by saying no to earlier offers, some of which would have given you more than 10x the payout. I have been inspired by your vision about this project from the moment I met you 5+ years ago. It takes a lot of courage and greatness to let this project go. Super excited for continuing to work with you!
(10/13)

But Mastodon wouldn’t be where it is without so many more people than Eugen. I’m incredibly grateful to be able to work with the best team we’ve ever had. Each one of you brings so much value to the Mastodon project and I want to thank you for making our mission your day job while you could certainly earn double or triple at one of our for-profit competitors.
(11/13)

Felix Hlatky Nov 18

We’re still an absolute skeleton crew of 14 people, competing with teams sometimes 100x as large as ours. To get to our humble team size was only possible through the less than 1% community members who donate to Mastodon, a handful larger donations, & EU grants, all of which we are forever grateful for. We still have a large funding need for 2026, so please consider making a donation before the year-end if you’d like us to continue building and improving Mastodon https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors#donate
(12/13)

Donate to Mastodon

Donate or become a sponsor and help us build the social web for everyone!

Felix Hlatky Nov 18

Most importantly, thanks to everyone here, to the whole community. I promise to always put the humans here first and to keep this a safe space for you, no matter how you express yourself and where you come from. I will treat my new position with the most respect. Let’s make Mastodon and the Fediverse even more beautiful than it already is <3
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Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™Nov 18

@mellifluousbox @Mastodon very excited to see what this new chapter will bring! we're all counting on you, don't let us down!

@mellifluousbox
Congrats, wishing you the best! ❤

Calligrafae Nov 18

@mellifluousbox you're lauding Dansup, so you've immediately dismissed the safety of Black and Trans folk here.

https://weirder.earth/@thief/113963464416185347

:banana_slug: (@[email protected])

i'm gonna reply with a bunch of receipts on dansup, let me know if a link doesn't work!

weirder.earth

Cat, Fée Line (she/her)Nov 18

@welshpixie @mellifluousbox thank you for raising this.
The fediverse is not safe until EVERYONE is safe.

@mellifluousbox we're lucky to have you! Congrats on the new role 🥳🥳

@mellifluousbox TL;DR; can you put it in one message instead of that infuriating thread of short messages that are hard to read and as a reader you dont know where to comment (at first? at last? at part that you want to comment?)

oh... you are on that mastodon.social that allows only 3 chars per message... its so shame, maybe change instance to one that allows to communicate ;-)

#TrollingIsAnArt

Jeremiah Lee Nov 18

@mellifluousbox Cheering you, the team, and this community on in this righteous fight for a collectively-owned digital commons!

Toni Aittoniemi Nov 18

@mellifluousbox Thank you, welcome, and good luck! It’s going to be an uphill battle, but those are always the best at the end anyway. 🫶

Daniel Gomes Nov 18

@mellifluousbox Congratulations on your new role. You really earned it. Wishing you a wonderful tenure

Do you know how much it would cost each user on Mastodon per year to support it if there was an annual fee/donation? Eg if every user donated €10 a year Mastodon could that more than cover costs?

Maybe people might be interested in an annual donation if affordable. Even if 20% donate €10 a year it might help a lot?

Philip Schroepel Nov 18

@dfgomes @mellifluousbox
Based on 2024 numbers and a rough calculation as little as €1 per year from each (100%) active user would cover our annual cost. Alternatively, if 20% of users gave €5 each year - instead of the current rate of under 1% - this would also cover our total annual cost.

Daniel Gomes Nov 18

@philipkristians @mellifluousbox Thank you. That is extremely affordable. Is there a way to reach all users with this asking them to donate €1 as a one-off annual payment?

Use Apple Pay, Google pay etc so it’s quick and instant.
Maybe make it €2 instead, to cover payment fees from Apple, Google etc?

Daniel Gomes Nov 18

@philipkristians @mellifluousbox Third party apps could also display the pop up with a quick payment option on the website via a “Donate now” button.

Christmas time now is a great time to do so.

I think most people would donate if it’s that cheap and they understand it keeps the service running.

Bill Hooker Nov 19

@dfgomes @philipkristians @mellifluousbox Currently on Patreon I don't appear to have any options besides USD8, 10 or 20 per month. I canceled because I'm long term unemployed and scraping every penny until it bleeds, but I'd come back if there was a cheap-ass option. (I'll be back if I ever get another job, of course.)

🍄slow learner, ❤️‍🔥deep feeler Nov 18

@mellifluousbox

I wish you well.

And, humans are not safe for each other. If you try to make Mastodon safe for every person here, you will empower the most dangerous people. Please make a safe place for those humans being actively oppressed.

official_verified

@mellifluousbox 💚

UberZeitgeist Nov 18

@mellifluousbox - Bravo to all of that, in 13 installments, too. Congrats on your matriculation, and let's all hope for a better platform experience every day.

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸Nov 18

@mellifluousbox congrats on your new position and on your vision moving forward. It sounds like something I personally, and I as @chris at the tiny non profit #socialBC can really get behind. That gets me excited about the future of the social web.

Truly wishing you and the team the best, and am thankful for all the work of @Gargron and others who got us to this place!
#fediverse #activitypub #mastodon

The Nexus of Privacy Nov 18

@mellifluousbox Congratulations! Looking forward to seeing where things go!

Alexander Yildiz Nov 19

@mellifluousbox cool man. Appreciate it

Unfoldedmemory000 Nov 20

@mellifluousbox wishing you the best start!

Jonathan Kamens 86 47 Nov 18

@mellifluousbox ???
[EDIT: It's working again, just donated!]

Philip Schroepel Nov 18

@jik @mellifluousbox
It should work as usual again.

Axel Rauschmayer Nov 18

@mellifluousbox One small idea for getting more donations—supporter badges: They reward donors and tell other that they can donate, too.

Another option may be Wikipedia-style donation campaigns for servers.

@mellifluousbox @rauschma уже

Howard Chu @ Symas Nov 18

@mellifluousbox what teams do you compete with?

Felix Hlatky Nov 28

@hyc Probably a better phrasing would be to say new users come to Mastodon and the fediverse with expectations from polished products like Instagram. The teams working at Instagram are probably 100 times as large as the core team of Mastodon. We obviously stand on the shoulders of giants in form of volunteer OSS contributors. But the point still stands: New users come here with expectations from other social network apps huge dev teams have built financed by data harvesting & ads

Tea time.Nov 18

@mellifluousbox Hi Felix,
I'm hopeful about your/the board's appointment, BUT can we make something akin to a Bill of Rights for Mastodon users, so that we can create a lasting, binding, regularly reviewed structure to make sure that #enshittification doesn't gradually occur?

Having a Mastodon Bill of Rights that is durable and binding would be a GREAT selling point for Mastodon, and would help to cement the core beliefs of a healthy, durable culture for the site.
https://mastodon.social/@KraftTea/115571444527506544

Korawich Kavee Nov 19

@KraftTea @mellifluousbox I am learning a new vocabulary here, so do you mean this #Enshittification like https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1nb8dt0/the_stages_of_enshittification/

Roland Sommer Nov 19

@mellifluousbox

I've tried it several times and gave up everytime. I'd love to have just an IBAN to send money directly.

Felix Hlatky Nov 19

@rsx Sorry to hear that. If SEPA Direct Debit is an option, you can use it here (via our fiscal sponsor WE AID).

https://donate.stripe.com/14A4gAfACaLg76zfKB1ZS07

Stripe Checkout

Roland Sommer Dec 30

@mellifluousbox

done

@mellifluousbox thank you for asking for Donations for Mastodon Development.

@digitalcourage , we have a good deal that I pay €1 per month for your hosting. Does this also include that @digitalcourage pays Mastodon devs?

How much would every user have to pay for hosting and development to make it sustainable?

I would prefer a simple model where I just pay my normal fee to my hoster and the hoster pays forward to the developers / maintainers.

I see the users and servers are currently divided into "you may donate but you can freeride" and "you must pay". I prefer a fair model where all users see the value of mastodon and thus are ok to share the cost and must pay. This distributes the cost amongst all users.

padeluun ⁂Nov 19

@mellifluousbox Heisser Tipp: schreib das auch auf Deutsch ;)

@mellifluousbox You probably know, but team 100x size is not 100x faster or better, rather a scam of growth for the same VC. Stay small :)

@mellifluousbox @codeinabox would there be any possibility of tax deductible donations rolling out to other countries?

Felix Hlatky Nov 28

@acb @codeinabox Yes, absolutely - in many countries it requires to incorporate with an entity in that jurisdiction, so there's a bit more setup work involved and it needs to be justified in terms of recurring admin expenses

@mellifluousbox @codeinabox there’s no pan-EU mechanism that would allow people in any EU nation to donate to Mastodon in a tax-deductible way?

Lutin Discret Dec 1

@mellifluousbox IIRC instagram was 13 people when facebook bought it so 14 is not skeleton (and they had tens of millions of user)