frankie boyle's beanbag chair of death

I think these folks really do not appreciate what an incredible achievement cohost has been. For the field the burn rate was comically low, the conversion rate was absurdly high, and even more so considering that the premium tier was mostly sold on goodwill. It looked to me like you came within a factor of 2 or 3 of being sustainable on that. And you ran it successfully for 2.5 years!

When you consider that VCs expect 9 out of 10 of their investments to piss away tens of millions of dollars and then fail, and the last 1 in 10 will piss away tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to hockeystick their userbase and then attempt, and often fail, to turn a profit through pure applied evil, well, it's frustrating to watch people underestimating you and what you've built.

one thought i have been having about yall (staff) has been like hell yeah they really did this thing, thoughts and ideas are ephemeral, materializing an endeavor like cohost takes so much courage and strength to actually do and yall did it

For about a year or so, some friends and I had been conceptualizing a site that would have been a competitor to YouTube, although we haven't gotten anywhere past the planning phase yet. It doesn't exactly help that none of us know how to create a website.

I absolutely love this take. Love what you folks built here. Love that you tried. Love that your message at the end is this gracious and encouraging.

Hope y’all land on your feet and find something rewarding.

I am so angry at all the people who from the jump seemed to be cheering for this to fail, because I cannot fathom what pleasure they could derive from this, and suspect the answer is just “none, they just resent the idea that nice things might be possible.”

The important thing about Cohost is that it existed, and it worked, even if it was brief (though I'd argue 2.5 years is impressive given the size of your team). It's proof that such a thriving grassroots community platform is possible.

It's easy to shit on things and complain they're not good enough, but it takes courage to actually make something happen.

anybody arguing "the staff are paying themselves too much!" should try starting a cohost clone and not pay themselves at all.

I don't remember if it was you or someone else but there was a post ages ago akin to

"Something you don't like about Cohost? Go make your own site! No seriously, the only thing better than a queer owned co-op social media website is two of them. More of them is a good thing! You should go make one!"

Alas it's easier to stay on the one site and Be A Hater instead, I suppose. Usually without the self awareness of how it looks to do it on the site itself! At least I know I'm being a doofus when I'm say, bitching about discord on discord itself.

powerful title format

unfortunately i do not have 1.4 million dollars

No social media platform has ever been profitable. You have to graduate to "advertising platform" to get profitable.

In a world where most social media found itself suffering from the hands of malice, cohost was a god damn miracle.

nobody was asking yall to turn a profit except yourselves.
you could've left the lights on and moved on to new work instead of burning down the apartment building because being asked to do maintenance hurt your feelings.
this is a seriously embarrassing look right at the end of all of this. but it's also exactly what i expected.
i remember when i respected the people who worked here. however, you have put in phenomenal amounts of time and effort to make sure that that will never be the case again.
deuces.