Yesterday, as part of the discussions related to Lemmy current inability to delete all user content I wrote a proposal: if enough people stepped up to help with funding, I’d take my work on my Fediverser project (which already has an admin web tool that “knows” how to interface with Lemmy) to solve all the GDPR-specific issues that we were raised by @[email protected]
The amount asked is, quite frankly, symbolic. I offered to work 10h/week on it if at least 20 people showed up to contribute via Github (which would be $4/month) or to signup to my instance (which access is given via a $29/year subscription). In other words, I’m saying “Give me $80/month and I will work 40 hours per month on this thing which so many of you are saying is critical to the project.”
So now that we have passed 24 hours, 58 upvotes and a handful of “that’s great!” responses, let me tell you how that translated into actual supporters:
- Zero sponsors on Github
- Zero signups on Communick.
Don’t take this as me demanding anything. I’m writing this just to illustrate the following:
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The Tragedy of the commons is real. I can bet that at least 30% of the 60+ thousand users on Lemmy are proud owners of a pricey iPhone, and most of these are okay with paying for an app to use on their pricey iPhones, but almost none of them will even consider throwing a few bucks per year on the way of an open source developer.
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The Outrage Mill is not a “capitalist” or even “corporate” phenomenon. People were piling on the devs yesterday for completely ignoring “such a crucial piece of functionality”, but no one actually stepped up to offer (or gather) the resources needed to have this problem solved. It’s almost as if people were getting more out of the discussion about the problem than working through a solution.
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“Skin In The Game” is a powerful filter. No matter how much people will tell you that something is important to them, the true test is seeing how many are willing to pay the asking price. If not people are not willing to pay $2 per hour of work, then I can assume that this is not really important.
I didn’t see your initial proposal. However I sympathise with this post and I really understand the frustration you’re feeling with the lack of donations, having seen it time and time again in the open-source space.
I was going to pledge that I’d donate once I had the cash available, but seeing how you respond to people in the comments is leading me to reconsider. You may not be demanding donations, but to me it does look like you’re attempting to shame people into donating with a challenging tone. Quoting one of your responses:
I still want to support you if you’re going to pursue this, since I myself have a strong interest in Lemmy being GDPR-compliant, but I ask you that you please reconsider how you approach the people that can potentially be supporters of your efforts.
Ok, you are right that I was more aggressive in this comment that I should. And you are right that is coming from a sense of frustration, but it’s not just because of my proposal.
I’m frustrated by the overall “what’s in it for me?” attitude that still prevails in a place that is so self-proclaimed “pro-collective” and “anti-corporate”, and I’m frustrated by the lack of consistency of the community. We all love to claim to hate Reddit and its practices, but I can bet the large majority went back to use it and are just waiting for the alternatives to magically be developed.