also the August 2024 financial update, but Iām trying not to bury the lede.
Hi everyone,
We have come to the decision to cease operations of cohost and anti software software club due to lack of funding and burnout. As of today, none of us are being paid for our labor1; all of our money in the bank, and any money coming in from people who buy our merch or donāt cancel cohost plus, is going towards servers and operations ā paying the bills so we can turn the lights off with as little disruption as possible.
cohost will become read-only on Tuesday, October 1st. At this time, we will make best-effort attempts to keep the servers online through the end of 2024.
Development focus has immediately shifted to data export. We have offered minimal data export for GDPR compliance for a while now, but this is a barebones system that doesnāt meet our quality standards. We will be improving this system over the next few weeks and will issue full data exports for all users when the site goes read-only. We will continue to offer downloads of your data export through the end of the read-only period.
When the read-only period concludes, we will delete all of your data from our servers without a backup. Even now we want to reiterate that we think ādata brokerageā and other common practices of the software industry are inimical to who we are as people, and we would never consider selling your data to others or asserting any rights to stuff you posted under any circumstance.
Majority control of the cohost source code will be transferred to the person who funded the majority of our operations, as per the terms of the funding documents we signed with them; Colin and I will retain small stakes so we have some input on what happens to it, at their request.
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on that note, weāre looking for new jobs. weāll each be posting about that bit individually.
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Fuck Stripe for this. Bankers really just hate artists, don't they. I hope someday soon, artists will have their own payment processor that makes paying artists easy, maybe a Furry Credit Union as some have suggested.
I wasn't really on as much as I would like, and the smaller community and tag-only search meant that I couldn't always find whatever super specific content I wanted to find. But I wanted it to grow, and was glad of its existence.
I know it's not realistic to expect this decision to be reversed. Y'all need to put your own survival first, And between offering a download for everyone's data and cooperation with Archive Team, I doubt there will be much data lost. We could even pick up right where we left off if that ever became a possibility. But...gods, I just hope we get a worthy successor someday. Part of the internet that isn't subject to endless enshittification. Where we can just scream our stupidest thoughts into the void, only to be yes-anded by like minded individuals, without being subject to outrage-for-engagement and algorithmic bullshit. Where artists can make money without being subject to endless bullshit.
I hope this isn't the end of the Anti Software Software Club, either. Not just that you all land on your feet, but that you can keep working on things that align with your values. I want you all to keep bringing stuff to the world. I want you to keep being the change we all want to see.
I love you all, and I will miss this site!!

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Thanks for making cohost!


