glad to hear things are looking at least more positive than before. i think the artist alley idea is pretty cool and i'd be happy to give it a shot.

:]

Personally, as a user, I would be interested in an Alley where I can see Artists

Have you considered hosting a fighting tournament calling upon fighters all around the world to earn the title of champion? I think if you charged $10 a ticket for spectators you could raise quite a bit of money on an international fighting tournament. You could split the money between development costs and the championship cash prize.

🎉🎉🎉 personally very excited to waddle around artist's alley and see what people are doing (and perhaps see a shitpost). thank you for making cohost!! 💜💜💜

Glad to hear it c:

huh, neat

i'm thrilled about the artist alley concept! any other site i'd be completely disinterested, but cohost has SUCH a good culture that I can see myself browsing that area regularly

Hell yeah! Happy my extra subs are contributing!

Other than excellent posts on here, I do love cohost for all the independent creators on here whether it's artists, game devs, writers, etc.

The algorithm and general flood of posts on places like twitter and bluesky have made it hard to discover new things. Meanwhile I have found many new things from people sharing their own work on here. So giving users the ability to promote is exciting.

Am considering looking into it myself personally if I can fit it within my own project budget.

quick q, is this report factoring in that the new cohost plus subscribers are almost certainly not going to keep subscribing now that the mysterious funder is back?

Is making export tools and whatnot going to be a priority over the next few months?

Honestly, this is the second time now that we've been a few weeks from not making payroll and get a big influx of donations because of it and things look better. What's actually stopping it from happening a third time?

Ooh the artist alley sounds really nice

important question: will we be able to use artist alley for things that are not self-promotion. like if we just wanted to go "hey look at my cat/basil/THE FROG OF THE MONTH" would those be cool and acceptable "ads" to run

In any case I am super glad to hear that things are looking up. Transparency can be a bugbear, but I fully believe that while it might spook some people away from the platform, it'll do far more to attract the sorts of people who are really willing to give it their all to make sure y'all succeed.

Artist Alley sounds SO cool and I’m really excited for it!

I imagine it must be frightening to be so transparent but I really appreciate it. I've loved the community that this site has created and really want for it to survive.

Hell yeah! I'm quite glad to hear that the situation has gotten that much less dire that quickly.

Also, as someone who's probably staying on here for as long as the site is running, whether that's six months or multiple decades — I'm seconding the question about export tools, and also wondering about non-manual account deletion. The former is both a fairly important feature to have generally and something that seriously needs to be ready in case there's another urgent funding scare, and the latter is… …a pretty unusual feature to not have, at least from my experience.

Where do those fall on the development roadmap?

Hmmmm, I hope you break even.

Woohoo!

thank you for making cohost. really looking forward to artist alley :)

$21k MRR? eggbug is gonna have so much varnish for that cache server

I second having another round of eggbug plushies

this is such a relief to hear! I'm also very excited for the artist alley

thanks for making cohost, and for being transparent about the ups and downs

This is wonderful, I'm glad that the love for Cohost manifest in this. Best wishes for the staff and Cohost itself!

I hope I'm back from hiatus when eggbux subs drop so I can be so annoying about it to my ex-patrons and audience of thousands of horny furries

Weird thought about eggbux — what if users could determine (within some window) the percentage cohost was given?

Personally, I know I’d be extra compelled to consider using eggbux as opposed to something like Comradery (which hits rock bottom fees by being a creator/member co-op) if I had agency over the allotment to the site—and honestly, it would definitely make me consider giving a larger percentage than I’d be okay with any platform forcibly taking…

Also, a strong commitment to not de-monetize (or invasively ID for) +18 content might get people from patreon and gumroad etc. to actively join for eggbux!

glad things are looking better than before, cohost is a really wonderful place. looking forward to a way to see people's funny jokes (and art) more easily

cohost stay winning

ohh artist alley!!! that's sweet, i'm so charmed. thanks for making cohost!

thank you for making and maintaining cohost!!!!!!

Due to the fact that Gumroad just banned NSFW content from their platform I think subscriptions built into an artist and NSFW friendly social media site like Cohost may have larger adoption than anticipated when it's done. NSFW artists are tired of having to continually jump ship and rebuild their following just to continue making a living and Cohost subs could be a big draw to those who constantly have that sword of Damocles hanging over their head.

For me personally, I've always intended to use SOME subscription service for my art and comics some day when I get off the ground and hadn't yet decided on which one. The idea of having eggbux as an option that I can use to also support the only social media site I've ever felt good about puts it at the top of my list as long as it has the kind of functionality I'd need by the time I need such a service (probably at least a year away).

Good luck eggbuds. 👍

I don't have much to say but thank you for making cohost, caring enough about it to keep it cohost, and being so transparent about it throughout

As someone who's been having a lot of Thoughts about this over the past couple of days, and who is not (currently) able to spend money on here (and thus feels less qualified to be critical), I will say this:

More transparency is good.

Responding to criticism (which I see happening in the replies) is good.

I truly hope you can find a way to make this site sustainable.

The Artist Alley concept sounds so cool! Wish you could call it something like "Promoted Feed" that's clear and straightforward but unfortunately the Rest of the internet has rotted terms like that so everyone would want to avoid it like the plague based on the name alone haha. But... something Feed would be very interesting to peruse!

I would also suggest as a natural way to integrate a system like that with the normal browsing experience while also increasing the value of the promotion for the buyer, would be that promoted posts with tags get "featured" in a little sidebar on the page for that tag, so anyone viewing that tag page can still see the most recent posts, but their eyes might also be drawn to a little side-feed of sorts showing any currently promoted posts.

i hope ur og funder is ok!!! sending all five of u the biggest well wishes

🎉

just make sure this artist alley is actually easy to find. if it becomes something a large amount of the users dont even know exist, because they dont visit a specific tag or they dont click through a certain menu button, it wont have enough reach. i also think maybe artist alley isnt a great term bc people might want to advertise things that arent "art" in that sense (both funny joke ads, or advertising their recipe blog, or podcast, or something).

we are SO back.

sending positive energies to the eggbug! the arrival of my vibes to your eggbug will coincide with the arrival of your eggbug booty shorts that i purchased to my me.

Glad to hear things are looking better! I'll be interested to see how artist alley looks!

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

thank you for these very open and educational financial updates!

there is no audience I would like to promote my work to in an artist alley more than the self-selecting userbase of cohost

Great news and ideas!

hi kara!

Gosh I'm glad these comments are less toxic than they have been regarding other topics...

All my other thoughts have been covered by other people so the only new thing I have to add here is that I am excited for synonymization in the tags! I really like the way that the OTW does tag indexing on AO3 and hope that you all will be able to achieve something similar.
As a suggestion: maybe make a button so that users can suggest tags to link together as synonyms? That would probably go a long way in helping establish the synonyms and keeping up with new tags and terms people use for fandom stuff and identity politics and literally everything all of the time a little bit of everything all of the time

What are your plans for payment processor back-end? There are basically no payment processors that aren't extremely hostile to sexual media, especially fetish oriented media. Recently Gumroad banned all pornographic media from being sold on their platform. Patreon has been pushing kink after kink off the site. Paypal is know for strong arming sites into following what they find acceptable. And other big name processors such as Stripe and Payoneer ban all sexual services (art, games, photography, any and all forms of sex work) from their payment processors.

Additionally, FOSTA and SESTA make anything related to sex high risk to you as a site. Multiple sites shutdown or purge pornography in response. Will Cohost be able to moderate the site to insure it can't be construed as enable sex trafficking?

What has been discussed with regard to sexual media and the risk it poses to you as a social media site? Especially a social media site with a large queer community. Anit-porn policies disproportional hit LGBTQ+ circles.

Sorry one more question because it's a bit unclear:

as we said above, we will continue to need short term funding to develop cohost. we have received some very generous offers we are considering for bridge funding from users, and we have also been able to reestablish contact with our initial funder. it will be a few weeks before we actually have any paperwork signed, but we are confident that the site will continue operating for at least six more months through one or more of these avenues.

Is money coming from the initial funder, or is said paperwork referring to the bridge funding offers?

This financial update is quite a bit more optimistic than the last one, so I'm very happy to see that. Also, a huge thank you to the subscribers of cohost! plus! We're making a difference!

Gumroad and Patreon deciding to shoot theirs and everyone else's dicks off today makes Eggbux all that much more critical. I've been pushing cohost to my friends and to communities I'm active in, and having a platform that isn't trying to cut its users off at the knees is really important. I upped my contribution level per month after the last post for cohost plus, and I'm hoping and praying that the path to sustainability (and profitability!!!) is within reach. Thanks so much for the continued transparency.

I've only had artist alley for two hours, but if anything happened to it etc.

Man, I too wish I could consistently miss my job's deadlines, hit existential threat levels of crisis twice a year, and keep getting funded by a mysterious patron to keep I also passing the hat to gather my clients' goodwill while earning 90k a year. The true dream.

This is really great news. I'm glad we've got (at minimum) a few more months. Artist Alley sounds really cool as well.

I'll repeat a suggestion I made on the last thread. Make your merch site prominent. Put a link to it in a place where it can't be missed. Maybe even in the drop down menu. That's easy money right there, even if it isn't great money. Every little bit counts, right?

As for ads: The site existing is an improvement over the site not existing, you know. :p I would also argue that having ads show up can be an improvement; I've found some of my favorite webcomics and shops from random user ads on like, Flight Rising. If people really can't stand it, they have adblock.

Artist alley sounds like a cool implementation of it though and I'm looking forward to seeing it in action.

I think a lot of commenters on here have are missing the point of this site. These four people are trying to make a website that goes against every established, predatory standard in the industry. This is an ideological experiment, and there is a very real possibility it will fail. I will be so sad if it does, but this won't be the last one trying to break away from Big Social Media. I've learned loads about what type of media I actually want to see and interact with, undoing a lot of brainwashing from targeted algorithms and click bait. And if anyone finds their unwillingness to sacrifice morals "unethical to the userbase," the responsibility is on the user for putting in too much on something that has been incredibly transparent about not being stable.

artist alley... combine it with eggbux and you got a marketplace for artists, instantly filling another now-dying part of the internet, being a place for independent artists to sell nsfw digital content...
this is gonna pop off unbelievably hard if done right, and I have the most faith that y'all will do your best with it!

Glad to hear things are looking better than they were on Monday! Sounds like there's some paths forward, lots of cool stuff on the horizon.

wahoo!!!!!!!

do you have plans for eggbux in regards to 18+ content not being impacted by payment processor shenanigans?

Let me buy ads.

I actuallys really like the idea of an artist alley! Maybe not the best example but I really like Furaffinity’s ads for example

Please consider adding PayPal or Patreon funding options. I'd sign up for Plus immediately if either were an option.

Other than that, I have zero issue without whatever ads you gotta sell to generate revenue. I've already whitelisted the site for if/when that happens.

Thanks for the update. I'm unemployed at the moment, with regard to additional funding, but rooting for ya! We can all figure this stuff out on our respective battlefields.

this overlaps with a lot of the suggestions made but if you aren’t already familiar and it would be helpful to see how another site has incorporated a lot of the financial avenues cohost is looking into, the site https://www.pixelcatsend.com/ has been doing unobtrusive user to user ads and a (forum style) artist alley in a way that feels very friendly and focused.

They also recently(ish) started implementing a way for artists to design decorative items that other users could commission (the way they were planning to do it was a bit complicated, I can’t remember the details) but I wonder if it might be possible to do a similar thing for emojis?
(might be more complicated for cohost because of differences in structure and previously implemented features to build from..)

we have also been able to reestablish contact with our initial funder

glad to hear. regardless of whether further funding from them is at all possible, i’m glad you managed to regain contact with your friend.

anyway what about tumblr blaze but instead of boosting/sponsoring a post, it’s just like a “thank you cohost for letting me see this post” thing or maybe even a “spend five dollars to let the poster know that you hated/loved their post”.

thank you for making cohost

Glad you got it up for the moment
Also artist alley sounds fun!!

Thank gosh! Honestly, getting a subscription is one of the first things I'm gonna do.

As a suggestion, maybe take a note from Ko-Fi:

Ko-Fi users have two options. They can either give a small percentage of their tips to Ko-Fi and have access to more features, or buy a 'premium' subscription for those same features. Either way, users get fun stuff and Ko-Fi gets more support. I personally have it set so that Ko-Fi can just take a small bit of any tips I get.

as a non-artist, I am SO looking forward to the Artist Alley feature, it sounds like a really good way to accept ads that actually benefit the userbase! seriously glad things are looking up. thank you for making Cohost, this site is one of the last good things online.

... But why isn't this posted in the cohost corner.

Why do you refuse to post these financial updates in a place where a normal user can see them?

And please don't say "follow staff", important updates about the site should be visible to everyone on the site or at the very least communicated via email or a site popup or something.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, I want this site to succeed, but I bet a good chunk of this site's userbase has no idea of what is going on. I only found out about this post because I was trying to see the previous financial post to check up on something!

In the thick of all the commentary, I'll say this much:

I'm actually kinda cheerin' for y'all now. Especially re: what Gumroad and Patreon are doing.
Not gonna pretend to have 'big thinky ideas', just... do your best, staffers 💜

(Ok maybe a little snark. But also thank you for treating eachother like actual people and not disposable tools, despite the wishes of a couple capitalism-poisoned shitlibs :3 )

Heck yea!! Good to hear stuff's at least going a bit more in the right direction! Artist alley sounds interesting and I might even consider using it when I finally post some of my art here

We saved eggbug for a few more months! Artist alley sounds like a dope idea, I'm all for being able to discover things and occasionally being rickrolled or sent to a page that transitions seamlessly into a Cristal ad or whatever shitpost ideas they have.

Staff could always take a mild pay cut

I'm not exactly somebody using the site to post my stuff, more using it to share stuff others made I think is cool, and I'm not currently able to support, so I dunno how my opinion compares to "popular" users, but... (Note in advance: this is not me dunking on you guys! Just offering my perspective cuz I really want this site to stay.)

1. It's worth noting that it doesn't seem like most people who actually use this site consider user-to-user ads to be as intrusive as you, staff, do... So I feel that you should very much consider that when thinking about which things would make the site "worse" to your userbase? Especially as something that would make it easier to keep the site up?

2. If you're doing the Artist Alley thing (name pending; I agree with others that finding a less artist-specific name for the overarching feature might help folks better understand what it is) instead of regular ads of the type from my first point... PLEASE PLEASE MAKE THAT VERY VISIBLE ON THE SITE. "Not intrusive" is an admirable goal, but "so unobtrusive that users can forget it exists or have difficulty finding it, especially if like many techie people they have ADHD" would be a problem for people wanting to use it. My day job is directing people to features in a program I help provide support for, so I can see the impact of this kind of issue in real time. I'm personally excited for this, cuz I love seeing new, passionately made art!

3. Similar to #2 above, please make these financials posts more visible and don't hide them from the feed on the side, as various folks have requested? If one of your goals is transparency, or indeed connecting with users who would like to know if the site is in dire financial trouble, so that they can help... These last two updates not appearing in a particularly visible place (unless someone specifically follows the staff account) feels like it kinda contradicts that? Forgive me for the personal analogy, but it's kinda like with a person who has mental health problems; if somebody who cares about them is never given an opportunity to see that they're struggling, that person might never be able to get help that would have been enthusiastically given by their friends. And that could lead to bad outcomes.
   It does potentially open you up to naysayers, I suppose (I see at least one here), but those people weren't going to help anyway and aren't your target audience, as far as I understand. I also agree with everybody who said on the previous post that a bar for how much the site needs to keep going may help folks better comprehend the needs of the site, cuz I don't think most people using... anything on the internet?... think about that so much without being told.

4. I agree with folks stating that if you're able to navigate getting NSFW artists of all sorts paid via Eggbux, that could be a huuuge draw for the site! I wish you the best of luck on it, cuz I know that ain't easy all on its own!

I really enjoy this site and the culture it's created, and recommend it highly to people, so I deeply hope all of us can keep it going! Thanks for caring about how the site turns out, folks.

Artist alley sounds fantastic, looking forward to it!

can't wait to see where this goes! i think it's awesome you're listening to the community and working so hard.

thank you for making cohost

I like the artist's alley idea a lot! I honestly have no idea how much I'd think is a fair price for it, because I've never actually participated in an artist alley before, but as someone hopefully finally releasing a VN this October I would love to expand my player-base from my 3 friends to 4, or even 5 people!

With recent changes in policy to a lot of artist tipping and subscription platforms shunning 18+ content, eggbux could be a cool gamechanger if we can make it independent from Mastercard and PayPal's bullshit!

Not sure if people who aren't already subscribed to cohost plus will read the comments this far down but: I finally did it and got the plus myself! Been pushing this off for far too long (and without a good reason, to be honest) and felt a bit bad about that when I learned about your dire financial situation through the (first) March update.

ANYWAY: don't be like the past-me, be like the present-me and help give cohost a push - because every other social media platform sucks foot.

can you guys put posts like these in the sidebar, or send us an email. other than refreshing the @staff page every day I have no idea there are updates to this otherwise!!

It's probably already been thought of, but with Artist Alley if the ads could tie in with the tagging system, I think that could be useful to avoid seeing advertisements/ art one isn't open to. Not sure if that might defeat the purpose of something like that though.

Have you considered Cohost Plus gifting? Something like how Twitch has gifted subs (which can be given to either a specific user or a random member of a community), or how you can buy someone a Ko-fi gold membership.

i have sent you EMAIL!! please also check your spam folder for that email address, i feel like my username combined with me talking about promoting and advertising could trip spam filters

Purchasable cosmetics. I love that shit.

Honestly I am very excited for the idea of the artist alley, both as someone who'd like to buy an ad-space for it and as someone who wants to support other artists' work. It'd be so helpful if we could sort the artist alley by tags, so if I'm looking for say washitape or a specific fandom I know where to go.

A very hopeful update! ♡ I look forward to what's new in the coming months, definitely looking forward to the rollout of Artist Alley!

Y'all should put these updates on the sidebar