Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   mekka okereke :verified: (mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 04:57:11 JST mekka okereke :verified:

   in reply to

   • Emelia 👸🏻
   • dominic :verified_paw:
   • Preskton ?⚡?
   • Asta [AMP]

   @aud @thisismissem @esk @dma

   Facts.

   The above post is much deeper and more profound than it might seem.

   I want people to read it again, and really understand it.

   When an Open Source or volunteer based initiative offers a similar service to a VC backed startup or publicly traded company, the odds can seem insurmountable, because the VC backed company budgets are astronomical. But... their budgets also include the need to both generate profit, and to grow at an exponential rate.

   Customer acquisition is *usually* very expensive. But if you don't also have that same need to generate profit, or grow at an exponential rate, then you can operate at a similar quality, for a fraction of the cost.

   "🤷🏻♀️ Meh. I don't care about hypergrowth, and I don't care about making a billion dollars." Is ironically, a devastatingly powerful *competitive* statement. It kills giants.

   But you have to believe that all this is true, to fully unlock your mind to then believe that you can create something of similar quality. Because if you don't truly believe this, then you instead tell yourself things like, "I don't deserve good UX in my product, because I don't have $200MM in funding." This is self-defeating excuse making.

   Mastodon is a unique "business" in that its customer acquisition cost is effectively negative.🙂🙃

   Because the most successful Mastodon marketing campaigns, are negative "customer attrition campaigns🤡" paid for and run by their competitors, that drive away their own customers, like Sonic losing his rings. They pay good money to drive their own customers to BlueSky and Mastodon.🤦🏿♂️

   • Embed this notice
     Asta [AMP] (aud@fire.asta.lgbt)'s status on Thursday, 09-Jan-2025 04:57:12 JST Asta [AMP]

     • Emelia 👸🏻
     • dominic :verified_paw:
     • Preskton ?⚡?

     @dma@hachyderm.io @esk@hachyderm.io @thisismissem@hachyderm.io @mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io you know, this really puts the old "twitter doesn't make any money" arguments into perspective (in that their argument wasn't that Twitter doesn't make any money so much as it was "Twitter doesn't make money hand over fist for the capitalist backers like they want it to").
     
     I still hear some variation about "fedi needs monetization!" and my first instinct is no, for a ton of reasons, but it's also nice to know that in theory, things can work out just fine and people can get paid for their time without forcing advertising or VC backing down people's throats.