Interesting reflections and points about creating a free service vs creating free software

https://hackerweb.app/#/item/30985514
https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/

@eaplmx@twtxt.net Very interesting article. 👌 I kind of tend to agree with the OP somewhat…

The question I have though is, would any of you actually pay for access to a Yarn.social pod or to have one managed for you? 🤔 If so, what would that look like in terms of the service offering and price point? If not, why not?

NB: Advertising or Showing ads will never ever be a thing. I just don’t believe in that garbage.

I’ve seen this idea a lot over the last… decade and I don’t buy it. I’m not just a user, I also run a free ssb node for 10$ a month just because I want to. this is about the minimum thing you can do, I’m not being hammered or otherwise having to pay a lot.

However. In my experience, paying for a service… i dunno. IMO the idea that user payment can circumvent the need for ads is wrong. ultimately they still show you ads. and on top of that IMO a paying user is a “mark”. If they pay they can be relied upon to pay more. and case in point everything I’ve ever paid for has ended up fucking me. in both cases (LOL) selling out to microsoft and ending up with “well we’ve invented new payment tiers so cough up your phone number and more money etc”. just my experience 🤷‍♂️

Even paying for netflix turns into “1 sub service per show” in my experience. Whereas popular network sites I use seem to be doing alright with a donations model 🤷‍♂️

I did sign up for the apple Private Relay beta for 1$ a month VPN when I realised I was on a TOTALLY UNSECURED public cafe wifi tho lol. I guess maybe that could answer your question about price point 😂

Makes you think 🤔 about how wikipedia has managed it for so long. imo wikipedia is the unmitigated triumph of “web 2.0”. their no ads policy is impressive

@prologic@twtxt.net I would pay! Since I have spare money and no free time (or will) to set up everything.

I was thinking of creating my instance of Yarn.social (mainly in Spanish, since I’m using Twitter a lot to share professional stuff), but then I got to learn some stuff, and paying a few bucks is faster (for me).

If I got to pay 5-10 USD for a VPS (plus my time setting up everything), and I get a service someone else is maintaining for, we say, 3 USD/month, it’s a no-brainer for me. But I don’t know how many people like me there are.

I think the hook is in having a not so painful price point and also making it hard to stop paying for it. Example: I pay Spotify, and now I cannot cancel, since my wife and father-in-law are using it, and I want to avoid that conflict of telling them that I’m cheap, so I pay 7 USD / month, and I get music w/o ads a few times a week.

@will@twtxt.net I’m surprised by Wikipedia. I know their monthly cost is impressive, and they manage to get funds to keep the lights on.

I don’t know the details, I think having encyclopedic universal knowledge is more worthy than a social/personal network, but no idea. You left me an itch of researching more about it.

@will@twtxt.net Interesting perspective, I also agree with every point 😅 I have all these “paid” services, they’re not worth it.

However… @eaplmx@twtxt.net makes a very good point on the convenience and price point.

There has to be a balance.

I would consider it like this, if enough of you folks that (today) freely use my pod as your secondary or primary social / microblogging platform were willing to pay even say $1.5 to $2 USD/month it might be enough to convince me wife to let me pay for Fibre and upgrade my upstream bandwidth considerably and make everything go much much faster, thus being better value 😅

@eaplmx@twtxt.net @prologic@twtxt.net You’re probably not going to like this but one time I did pay for an otherwise free utility it was because I wanted to get their app on ios 😆

Put my money where my mouth is!

As I’ve discussed previously (taken from the book ‘Predictably irrational’) money changes everything. From a favour now you have the obligation to keep lights on, and some predictability on how everything works.
From a friend giving stuff for free, now you are a supplier. That’s why free social networks are in that Uncanny valley of being free, but arguably you are the product.

It’s an interesting experiment to charge for some part of the product (even being a non-profit). You’ll see how people change. (And that’s not bad, but part of self-sustainability)

Actually It’s a good question, because server cost money, And it can be good if the community can help (I understand, I have the same issue). And can be through donation / Subscription / Advertising (I mean even if you don’t like it (and I understand) some people may choose that way in their server)

The real issue I have with it, It’s easy to make someone pay for a service your are alone to offer. But Is it’s hard to make someone pay for a service they can have for free elsewhere, it will even be counterproductive, because it will stop people of adopting your service.

@will@twtxt.net My case with Spotify on iOS. Now I’m using Android, but my wife and father-in-law use iOS, so…