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.
