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   Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 03:52:15 JST Mastodon Migration

   So, fresh on the heals of last week's news that #Bluesky is considering targeted advertisements and more VC investment, today we learn that they have a paid subscription model in the works.

   https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/09/bluesky-teases-paid-subscription-bluesky-in-new-mockup/

   This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Bluesky is burning through money, and their only options at this point are monetizing their user base through ads, subscriptions and data harvesting, and/or more outside investment. Probably they'll need all these enshitifying tactics.

   • Robert Link repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Robert Link (phaedral@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 03:52:32 JST Robert Link

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration hahahahahaha "Bluesky will save us!" HAHAHAHAHAHA

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 06:12:42 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     Nobody thinks Bluesky is going to go bankrupt, because they have revenue options like ads, data mining and a paid tier available, as well as more money from VC investors like Blockchain Capital, who have already put in $15M.

     But, at a burn rate which must be at least $1M per month. They'll need to do something soon.

     Watch this space.

     Jon Lindemann, Jay Baker and Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 06:12:42 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     Meanwhile, Mastodon lumbers along. Improvements get rolled out slowly and carefully. People are frustrated with the pace, but it stays within its means and retains control of its future.

     Thanks to lots of dedicated principled people, this amazing open distributed system works without mortgaging its future. It's solid, and step by step it progresses.

     It's truly remarkable. In an era of overextended overinflated unworkable vulnerable enterprises, there is one actual safe social network option.

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 06:12:44 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     Last week, when it came out that CEO Jay Graber was "not ruling out" advertising, we had a good discussion (https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113602718570344278) of the terrible economic pressures that the business must be under.

     Simply stated they are operating beyond their means. All of the fancy features that are attracting new users cost way more money that the company takes in, so something has to give.

     more..

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     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 06:12:44 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     In this era of VC backed startups, we have sort of lost sight of real business economics. It may come as a surprise to some that most businesses need to make more money, revenue, than they spend, expenses, and the difference if expenses are more than revenue is their loss. Unless they get money from somewhere, either increase revenue or get outside investment, they run out of money. This is called bankruptcy.

     more...

     Joachim repeated this.
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     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 06:12:45 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     They're calling it Bluesky+ and seems like you will get a nice badge and some improved user features. What is particularly interesting is that verification seems like it may be going behind their paywall: "Bluesky+ could be weighing offering verification (profile badges) as part of its subscription." Sound familiar?

     Below is a mock-up of the subscription page discovered by a Bluesky user. The company has responded that the UI mockup “doesn’t necessarily match what will be released.”

   • Embed this notice
     Robert Link (phaedral@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 08:17:06 JST Robert Link

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration hahahahahahaha

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:05 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • stuart
     • Jürgen Hubert
     • WetHat💦

     @WetHat @stuart @juergen_hubert

     Right. The thing is that actually running a profitable commercial social media network is impossible without ads, data mining and paid services, which degrade the user experience so much that people leave. The alternative is to operate at a loss by taking money from influence peddling billionaires. This is why inevitably users of these networks become captured pawns in the ongoing information wars.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     WetHat💦 (wethat@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:06 JST WetHat💦

     in reply to

     • stuart
     • Jürgen Hubert

     @stuart @juergen_hubert @mastodonmigration I do not see the contradiction. #BlueSky is not immune to being bought by another mad billionaire (even though they claim they are) who has a similar agenda.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     stuart (stuart@social.brainsys.com)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:07 JST stuart

     in reply to

     • Jürgen Hubert
     • WetHat💦

     @WetHat @juergen_hubert @mastodonmigration

     I see a contradiction. Following the commercial monetisation route as #BlueSky must will lead to a poorer user experience. But Twitter/X is different. It was on that route but no more since Elon.

     He is using Twitter/X to spread his worldview, not for profit. The proof is its capitalisation. No matter how bad the commercial route of others - Twitter/X is at a different sphere of disinformation, hate and blind prejudice than would make no sense to a purely commercial operator maximising profit.

   • Embed this notice
     WetHat💦 (wethat@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:08 JST WetHat💦

     in reply to

     • Jürgen Hubert

     @juergen_hubert @mastodonmigration #BlueSky is on the same trajectory as #Twitter due to the dynamics of commercial social media. In the best case, BlueSky finds a way to avoid the depravity of #TwitterX. Unfortunately, the #fediverse is less attractive than BlueSky because it lacks prospects for content monetization or becoming an influencer.

   • Embed this notice
     Jürgen Hubert (juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:09 JST Jürgen Hubert

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration I would love to believe that #Bluesky will be different and can escape the #Enshittification trap.

     But I have been burned by commercial social media systems twice - first Google-, and then Twitter. With #Mastodon at least I have the confidence that it will get better in the long run, which I don't have for Bluesky.

   • Embed this notice
     Jürgen Hubert (juergen_hubert@thefolklore.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:18 JST Jürgen Hubert

     in reply to

     • stuart
     • WetHat💦

     @stuart @WetHat @mastodonmigration

     I disagree. He leveraged Twitter/X to get privileged access to the second Trump administration. This is _extremely_ profitable, easily worth more than the purchase price.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     1337 $#!+ I did that (stalbaum@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 21-Dec-2024 09:16:29 JST 1337 $#!+ I did that

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration Interesting, these companies and their constant weakness: needing profit. Protocols over companies! #activitypub or hell just #ip (no, that that one. The Internet Protocol.) The most radical thing you can do right now? Build a network for your community! Host a node! Easiest? Put up a #Mestastic node.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:13 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • stuart
     • Jürgen Hubert
     • WetHat💦

     @juergen_hubert It is profitable for the owner personally, yes. That's why he can afford to run the company at a loss.

     @WetHat @stuart @mastodonmigration

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:38 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • frederic

     @frederic

     They advertise that they are decentralized, and the technology is theoretically designed to be decentralized, but effectively all their users are on one centralized server.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:39 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • frederic

     @frederic

     It's an estimate. Employees, contract labor, server costs, rent, travel. It costs a lot if money to run a company.

   • Embed this notice
     frederic@mastodon.cloud's status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:39 JST frederic

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration I thought bluesky was also decentralized. Not anymore i guess.

   • Embed this notice
     frederic@mastodon.cloud's status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:40 JST frederic

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration What does Bluesky spend $1M per month on?

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:45 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • Mark Kraft

     @KraftTea

     So, you see lots of comments like, "What do you expect them to do? They need money to keep the servers spinning." Kind of forgetting they were promised that this time it would be different.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mark Kraft (krafttea@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:46 JST Mark Kraft

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:46 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • Mark Kraft

     @KraftTea

     Kind of fascinating how the focus of attention shifts from the promised land of an egalitarian distributed future to what concessions of the vision it will take to keep the servers running. This happens all the time. People buy into the vision, then become invested and locked in to the platform, and shift to defending the platform even after the vision fades. It's really a core principle of enshitification.

     more...

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Kraft (krafttea@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:55 JST Mark Kraft

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration In the case of LJ, it was just asking for help. A reliable percentage chose to became supporters.

     We had memberships, but the bonuses we gave for it were nice little perks to say thanks, not significant features.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mark Kraft (krafttea@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:56 JST Mark Kraft

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration And no, it wasn't that I wanted to get rich. Rather, I thought that open source software should be more competitive, and try to break up the walled garden approach. And commenting / the ability to connect with others, while giving them control was something we had everyone beat at.

     It likely would've driven a lot of people to use our site and support our general mission, which can easily be monetized in a non-evil manner.

   • Embed this notice
     Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:44:56 JST Mastodon Migration

     in reply to

     • Mark Kraft

     @KraftTea

     The search for the business model. Is it under here? 👀 Maybe behind here? 👀 Where oh where did my business model go?

   • Embed this notice
     Ash (itsash@techhub.social)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:45:06 JST Ash

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration If Bluesky is supposed to be "decentralized" how is Bluesky+ supposed to work? Unless they never planned to decentralize in the first place

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Artemesia (artemesia@techhub.social)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Dec-2024 18:45:09 JST Artemesia

     in reply to

     @mastodonmigration

     They'll just announce they're going to use AI generated blockchain, and they'll get 10 years of VC funding.

     clacke likes this.