giwake

@giwake

game developer, I think?

they/them

i make games and music, sometimes.

profile picture by @thewaether!!!

moving to https://bsky.app/profile/giwake.bsky.social

giwake @giwake3/12/2024, 6:22 AM

talkative fishy @blackle

Frank Hecker @hecker11/19/2023, 8:12 PM

Noblesse oblige and the future of Cohost

It’s hard out there to be a social media site. Tumblr is the latest high-profile casualty, put on life support after a failure to make it into a going concern. I haven’t used Tumblr in a while, but I read Cohost every day, and write something for it every week; it’s one of my favorite places on the Internet. I’m thus concerned that Cohost may at some point also end up on the scrap heap of failed social sites.

Based on the June 2023 financial update (the latest available at the time of writing), Cohost’s financial situation is improving, but it’s still not at the point where it can be self-sustaining without the need for additional investment. Patreon-style subscriptions are planned, from which Cohost would take a cut, and paid ads are at least a possibility.

But I’m still worried about Cohost’s future, especially with a population of users many of whom themselves seem to be financially stressed, based on the increasing number of GoFundMe posts showing up in my timeline. That’s why my thoughts turned to Andrew Carnegie.

#cohost meta #Andrew Carnegie #The Gospel of Wealth #noblesse oblige #capitalism #socialism #social media

talkative fishy @blackle3/12/2024, 6:09 AM

an example of this in practise

I'm a director of a hackerspace whose membership dues lie on a sliding scale from $5/month to $180+/month, chosen by the member based on a rubric and on the honour system. It was a leap for us to use this model, because we weren't previously aware of any other hackerspaces that employed it, but we really wanted to be inclusive of people from all financial situations. We hoped that those who believed in our mission and wanted/were able to contribute the larger amount would cover those who wanted to join but wouldn't otherwise have been able if we had a fixed membership cost.

After four months and 23 new members, this hope turned out to be true. Our average is about $40/month per person (before taxes). This is ~2/3rds of the membership dues of a neighbouring makerspace down the road, which actually makes sense because we don't provide as many tools and resources as they do—they have a full workshop and we're a tiny room in a convenient location.

I've been explaining that the philosophy is: hackers want to hang out with hackers, not just hackers who can pay 40 bucks a month.

I can't guarantee that sliding scale/pay what you want always works. But my suspicion is that it works in substantially more places than you'd expect.

#cohost meta

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @hecker's post:

Plum @plumpan11/19/2023, 8:55 PM

Generally agree with this but 100% against showing your cohost plus status in your profile, even less so showing how many. Even if it's optional, really really really don't like the kinda class symbol that ends up being, even if it's because they did a good thing. No golden eggbugs.

For better or worse I'm also of the opinion that, until we fix capitalism as a whole and while that should be a priority, if you've got enough money that you get to pick and choose your luxury expenses then you have some duty to try and spend it more responsibly. More money to people doing what they love and/or making the world better, less directly to awful people and big companies trying to eat the world. Yes no ethical consumption and all that, but people have used that as a hand wave enough before throwing their money directly to bad people for tiny dopamine hits that I've long stopped caring. Paying cohost monthly instead of say, a streaming subscription (or worse, paid youtube), is an excellent example of that.

Frank Hecker @hecker11/19/2023, 10:24 PM

Thanks for stopping by to comment!

On the Cohost Plus! status thing, I personally wouldn't take advantage of that, but some people might and (playing devil's advocate) why not let them if it leads to them increasing support for the site? If other people think it's cringe then they're welcome to dunk on the folks doing it, like people dunk on the Twitter/X paid blue checks. But (as you note) spending money to support Cohost is a lot different and more justifiable than spending it on Twitter/X or many other things one could think of.

Brett @bck35611/20/2023, 4:15 PM

Man I have super mixed feelings about this

Carnegie's fundamental point (the wealthy should distribute their wealth downward) is obviously correct and I have no objection to that

but my objection is with people becoming that rich in the first place? Especially when luck is by far the dominant determinant for that (including Carnegie himself given your provided context). I know that's a direct contraction with one of his core points (capitalism is here to stay) but do we really want a system where our leaders are ultimately determined by chance? It sounds like Carnegie was mostly not an asshole (well sort of, you know what they say about it being impossible to become that rich without massive exploitation and I refuse to believe he was an exception) but you can't hardly read the news without tripping over a story about the modern hyper wealthy being assholes who barely pretend to be philanthropic

And also if wealth distribution was like, even a LITTLE bit more even, people would have far more freedom to support causes and networks they care about. Carnegie is clearly not accounting for people who barely have enough for survival

So while I do get the idea of noblesse oblige it sounds like it would be far more optimized as an anarchic, socialist system. Which maybe he wouldn't even necessarily object to if that was suggested to him, idk, he's dead

Frank Hecker @hecker11/20/2023, 10:27 PM

Thanks for stopping by to comment!

The comment re anarchy is interesting, because in the 19th century all US governments (Federal, state, and local) were much much smaller than they are now, and provision of public goods was pretty minimal. Carnegie's strategy was in effect to provide the startup investment for public goods (libraries, in his case) with the understanding that governments (local governments, in the case of libraries) would then take over their funding and operation. Of course, today we're used to governments funding those things (albeit with that funding often under threat), so a Carnegie-style strategy today would focus on public goods that are not yet provided by governments but could be. (For example, things similar to the Internet Archive, arxive.org, an authorized version of Sci-Hub, etc.)

Re assholes, Carnegie was not an exception. He was a contradictory person in many ways: valorizing "honest work" but also making money with often dubious financial speculation; radically democratic in his views, but also a fan of Social Darwinism; expressing support for workers but also letting his business associates brutally suppress a strike. It's worth reading some of his essays just to experience a 19th-century mentality at work.

Brett @bck35611/21/2023, 4:24 PM

Actually reading this comment again I realized that government funding is provided by taxpayers (obviously). So taxes going into public services is already Carnegie-style wealth distribution, just with representatives deciding what gets funding instead of individual people. The lack of new projects has more to do with representatives deciding that they are unworthy than a lack of actual funding existing for them

I don't really blame Americans for being so insistent on low taxes when it feels like they just get siphoned up into things that don't help anybody

@AndreL11/21/2023, 7:38 AM

I've wondered about whether public broadcasting provides a model for Cohost. But public broadcasting relies heavily on a combination of government support and grant money, neither of which are readily available to Cohost. And paid ads ("underwriting") are also important to public broadcasting, with the advantage of a locality nexus which Cohost doesn't have.

Would changing Cohost's legal status from worker-owned co-op (I think that's the current structure) to a tax-exempt organization help attract grants/donations? I don't know. I have seen people complain that Beats Time and some extra Eggbug emojji aren't worth the cost of Plus, and maybe they'd be happier paying if Cohost were legally non-profit (which in the US isn't quite the same thing as not-for-profit). But I imagine some people are paying for Plus because they like supporting a co-op.

Frank Hecker @hecker11/21/2023, 2:33 PM

Thanks for the comment!

Re attracting donations, currently in the US the standard deduction amount is so high that for the vast majority of people it doesn't pay to itemize deductions, including charitable deductions. I'm actually about to stop keeping track of my charitable deductions in my tax record keeping.

Nonprofit status does mean an organization will do a basic level of public reporting, and is protected against being bought out by people not aligned with the nonprofit's purpose. But ASSC already is fairly transparent re its finances, and as a worker co-op its owners are aligned with its stated goals and likely to remain so.

On the flip side, 501(c)(3) status in the US comes with a bunch of semi-arbitrary restrictions on how you can sell stuff and get revenue, and having seen how that works in action (as a nonprofit employee) I wouldn't wish that on ASSC and Cohost.

@AndreL4/11/2024, 6:32 PM

This comment has been in the back of my mind, and I'm in the middle of the calculations right now... you're right that federally it is doesn't matter for most people, but in some high-tax states (California for me) the deduction is just high enough to make the paperwork hassle of tracking donations worthwhile.

Pinned Tags

gamedev