So there's this subtype of poster that's existed basically since the site's launch: the Cohost Failure Concern Troll. This type of poster's primary use of Cohost is to proclaim, loud and long, that Cohost is sadly not long for this world. Their reasoning tends to shift fairly organically: nobody would ever deign to use a platform that doesn't track metrics, the site's EULA is wicked and evil, the community guidelines are wicked and evil, discoverability is simply too hard (and thereby wicked and evil), the strain of leftism that @staff espouses is fundamentally incompatible with the poster's strain of leftism, the site will simply never make enough money to be sustainable. They might go so far as to allow that, yes, Cohost is a bold experiment and @staff's hearts are in the right place, but the site is surely doomed so we should all just... well, go back to Twitter, presumably? Lie down and die? They never really get as far as offering solutions, honestly - the important thing, the MOST important thing, is that they're right (and smart) and @staff are wrong (and stupid).
(These people are deeply annoying and I tend to block them on sight from this account but occasionally when I'm checking a tag on one of my other accounts I'll come across one of their posts because the other thing about them is that they tend to be paradoxically high-volume posters on the platform they're so sure is going to slide into the sea.)
Last month's financial report, to the Cohost Failure Concern Troll, was like manna from Heaven. There, in black and white, was @staff admitting what they'd known all along: The Numbers Simply Don't Add Up. Current balance not enough to make July 15 payroll! 40k/month for staff and upkeep! Less than 6k/month revenue! It's all happening! It's all very sad of course, but I was right and it's all happening, just like I told you it would!
Now, something you should know about me is that I'm buds with 75% of @staff. We chat via various other channels. Specifics aren't mine to share, but I can tell you that the site's doing fine financially - better than ever following the most recent influx, unsurprisingly. So if you're worried: don't be.
But most people aren't me and don't have an inside line to the devs. Fair enough. So, using the publically-available information @staff have shared, let's employ a technique I call "critical thinking".
Before we get going, here are a few key facts:
- Development of Cohost began in 2020 (well technically I think it was 2019 but it started life as a different thing) and launched publically a year ago in 2022
- The site's primary source of funding is a single anonymous person. This person is independently wealthy following a cashing-out of shares in a tech company purchase
- This person's investment is in the form of interest-bearing bonds. This means that once they have the means to do so, @staff will pay the investor back what they paid, plus interest
- The anonymous investor is a regular user of Cohost
So! With all that in mind, as well as what @staff wrote in the financial update, let's apply that "critical thinking" I mentioned earlier:
- The investor wants Cohost to succeed. This should be blindingly obvious but I'll explain anyway. The investor has funded years of development on a social platform with a non-standard business model - it can be assumed they stand more or less in ideological agreement with @staff's design philosophies and that they have reasonable confidence in their ability to succeed. Similarly, their best chances of recouping (and profiting) on their investment comes with the site reaching sustainability. It can be assumed the investor would only stop providing funding if they were themselves in danger of running out of money, or if the site seemed to have no chance of success in a reasonable time frame.
- Given their background, it can be assumed the investor is reasonably savvy when it comes to technology & social media. That is to say, it can be assume the investor has a good understanding of what a social platform succeeding looks like and what a reasonable time frame for success would be.
- Given the nature of the investment model, it is known that the investor does not have unreasonable expectations of financial returns. They will receive back what they paid, plus a certain amount of interest - they are not expecting infinite growth.
Condensing all that down: the investor is sympathetic, presumably still has money to burn, and has realistic expectations. It can be assumed that they will continue funding Cohost as long as there are positive signs of growth.
Let's look at the financial update again. There are some modestly positive things in there: 130k accounts, 12k active users - not too shabby for a platform growing entirely via organic word-of-mouth over a single year. But there's one figure I'd like you to take special note of: 17.69% conversion rate of active users to paying users.
Something you probably don't know about me: before I became a massage therapist who moonlights as a porno game dev, I was a designer at a mid-size free-to-play game company, making F2P social games for iPhones and iPads. Our business model was pretty similar to Cohost's - almost everyone who played the games would do so for free, but as long as a small percentage of players paid, we'd be in the black. What percentage, you might ask?
2-3%. 5% was GREAT. I don't think we ever came CLOSE to a 10% conversion rate. A reasonable tech-savvy person should look at a 17.69% conversion rate and start SALIVATING. Even if that number were to be cut in half, it'd be far above the norm for an optional-subscription business. If I were the investor, I would look at that number and feel EXTREMELY secure in my continued investment into the project.
So, yeah, @staff aren't gonna be out of a job come the 15th, you fucking loons, and you don't need to be friends with them to figure that out. There's money in the bank, both from new users and from the investor, and they're more focused on building new features than on providing constant updates.
Oh yeah speaking of updates I got those asks now. Let 'er rip
...but I wanted to slide in here to say that IMO, this discourse can also apply to places like Pillowfort and other small sites like it - at least, smaller than Twitter and even Tumblr, and there are other factors in play aside from financial reports that seem unpromising and other things mentioned in @Bigg's post. Personally, I don't see doomers/concern trolls and their posts that often, nor do I go actively looking for 'em. But by this point, I've seen enough to where I gotta get some stuff off my mind.
Honestly there are a few things I almost said here that probably would've come off as me being unnecessarily harsh towards those doomers and concern trolls. I've always said I'm kind of a harsh person, even towards myself, and I'm doing everything I can to be better and tone myself down when the situation calls for a calmer, more rational response. To be fair, some of these doomers are being driven by misinformation. Case in point, I saw a post on Twitter a couple days ago alleging that Pillowfort was filled with white supremacists, that white supremacists were flocking there. Stuff they heard from rumors and "trust me bro" types. Obviously that's false and against their ToS and community guidelines, but I still feel like that kind of misinformation is playing a part in these doomer posts. To their credit, Pillowfort's social media and/or dev people were quick to debunk that in a quote-retweet. Besides, Pillowfort is set up in such a way to where that kind of crap won't ever be a thing. It's arguably better/more tightly moderated than even here, their dev/social media people are better at communication regarding stuff like that (fuck, they're better at communicating with their users in general), and in all the time since I signed up for Pillowfort, I can recall only ONE instance where someone was clowning that kind of nonsense. They got banned pretty quickly.
Yeah, I know this post seems like a massive advert for Pillowfort so far. That wasn't my intent, but I think what I've said so far helps me get to the point I wanted to make here. I can understand why some people would go all doomer/concern troll when it comes to places like Cohost and Pillowfort, misinformation aside. The Internet in 2023 is a desert hellscape, seemingly collapsing by the nanosecond. It's easy to write places like this off as being part of that collapse, what with userbases that are minuscule compared to Twitter and financial reports that may look at first glance to reveal nothing but doom and gloom. There are other factors in play here - misinformation as I've discussed, no Algorithm Overlords to aid discoverability and to shove nebulous "content" in your face 24/7 (fucking hell I HATE the term "content" in that context, but that's a rant for another day). However, with Twitter's implosion continuing at a frenzied pace, more and more people are jumping ship. Some of those people have money to burn, and there's a chance they like the experiences places like here, Pillowfort, and Inkblot (an art-focused social media site) provide enough to toss some of that in their directions. I refer to those three in particular since they offer premium subscription services to their users. That user funding likely makes up a good chunk of their overall income. Not to mention, in the desert hellscape that is The Internet In 2023, these places are massive oases. Refuges from Twitter and other collapsing sections of the internet. Places that are just more fun, exciting, and that don't cater to bigots, TERFs, white supremacists, and the like (nor are they run by such people, nor are they set up to let that kind of crap spread at all). Also the fact that all three are friendly to NSFW artists like myself, but that's starting to go outside the points I wanted to make with this post.
To put it simply, Cohost will survive the long haul. Pillowfort and Inkblot, too. As someone who's part of both (and who has an Inkblot account that's largely sitting idle and I feel the need to do something with), I want 'em to succeed. I'm glad to know, be it from posts like @Bigg's and from Pillowfort's social media, that they'll be fine. Doomers, concern trolls, and people outside the windows waving "THE END IS NEAR" posters at passers-by will probably always be a thing. Do I think it's best to try and convince 'em to give places like Cohost a genuine chance? Eh... It depends. If there's misinformation or any kind of misunderstanding in play, I'd say it's best to correct those people. If it's clear that these people have their heads up their own butts and cannot be convinced to give places like this a chance, block 'em.
At the end of the day, I come here to relax, scroll through art, and post my own art, not engage in discourse (this post notwithstanding). It's true that I'll likely keep posting on Twitter for the time being, but I feel happy knowing that I have places to fall back on should Twitter collapse to the point where it's unusable and/or become impractical to maintain a presence there. I'd argue I have a bigger presence on Tumblr than Twitter these days despite it not being as friendly to NSFW art as it once was (fuck you FOSTA/SESTA), and that's because I have a moderately large YouTube channel that I really need to push here more often.
But yeah, Cohost won't die any time soon, and that's awesome. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go join a Mastodon instance a friend of mine set up.
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