GitHub Sponsors • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#381

Post by return1 » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

ddevault wrote: post #329

Really neat! As someone who works on open-source full time and is largely sponsored by my users, here's my take: The good: - gets money into open source with an intuitive and accessible interface that will get it to the forefront of people's minds - they're the only platform that isn't taking a slice off the top (yet) - (temporary) donation matching and eating payment processing fees The bad: - a few projects on gith…

> a few projects on github are disproportionately large and influential

Since this is github though, this is probably more of a marketplace than a donation-market. There is definitely some supply-demand dynamics rather than just patronship

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#382

Post by 0xffff2 » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

dangjc wrote: post #199

0xffff2 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>GitHub will not charge fees for GitHub Sponsors. And to celebrate the launch, we’ll cover payment processing costs for the first year, too! One-hundred percent of your sponsorship goes to the developer. My reading is that they're only going to forgo the fees for the first year, and after that it's going to be basically similar to Patreon in terms of where the money goes.

Maybe they meant credit card interchange fees of 1-3%?

Maybe so, but when did we suddenly start giving companies like Microsoft the benefit of the doubt on stuff like this?

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#383

Post by caser » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #219

benatkin wrote: post #209

Not so fast. People have said this about gittip (now Gratipay), Patreon, Twitch, and now YouTube and Facebook. All of these have been mixed blessings. Here's an article about how Patreon doesn't work out even when everything goes smoothly: https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one-makes-a-living-on-pa... "After launching my Patreon, I struggled for months to find work. Patreon filled my downtime, and became a full time…

Who’s making a living on Patreon? The same people who make a living on Kickstarter, or via “gift” transfers through PayPal (before that was clamped down upon): people who can pull in whale patrons/backers. Certain verticals have more whale patrons than others. The common story is that if you’re an artist and you want to go where the whale patrons are, that’s—for some reason—art targeting the furry subculture. That’s…

Super curious to learn more about the lucrative furry art niche and how you came across it.

Surprised no one else has mentioned this part of the comment.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#384

Post by robotzero » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #192

This is such a watershed moment in the history of software development that I don't think most of us can grasp its significance yet. Sure we're familiar with other services that do the same, but the adoption rate (like for GH itself) will be clearly different. One could argue that this is more societally important than YouTube, Twitch, etc funded content for _consuming_ because this funds content for _leveraging_ to…

LOL! I think you might be a tad overstating the significance of this.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#385

Post by jerf » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

nathanvanfleet wrote: post #361

whatever_dude wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that whole article is a pretty shallow take, accusing Patreon of things that are not Patreon's fault (and I say this as someone who thinks Patreon is shady). Yes, people who make some stuff that takes a lot of time and effort might not get a lot of money on Patreon. But you know what? They're doing what everybody else is doing. I feel that nowadays everything want to think of themselves as "creators". They'll…

You're kind of agreeing with them though aren't you? It might seem like a really useful feature but, like Patreon, it might not be worth the time and effort for anyone. You're just a lot more focussed on making us all believe it's the persons fault somehow.

"You're just a lot more focussed on making us all believe it's the persons fault somehow."

Fault is awfully subjective so I'll leave that be. It is definitely their responsibility, though.

I've got a family friend currently making some dangerously stupid business decisions, where the best-case upside is that they'll make minimum wage or so, and the realistic worse case is bankruptcy and losing everything they've made in the past several years and dealing with the resulting financial fallout, when they have numerous other alternatives available including sticking to their ~$20/hr skilled job with decent career prospects and good long-term security. (I don't object to the risk itself; I object to taking for a max payoff worse than their current position. I'll also add to forstall the usual HN comments that this isn't being done for any other of the reasons that people around here might still make that decision; not a whisper of "being your own boss" or anything like that.)

There's no Silicon Valley whipping horses in this story, this is just plain ol' fashioned "not understanding business", or "not allowing your comprehension of the monetary situation to penetrate down to the actions you choose to make". Is it their fault? Oh, I can make all kinds of excuses for why that's not the case; there's all kinds of personal drama I'm not laying out here driving these decisions that I can deflect with.

But is it their responsibility? Yes, and there's nothing anybody can particularly do about that. Their name on the relevant mortgage. Their name on the relevant papers. Their credit score on the line.

It's your responsibility to make business decisions sensible enough to accomplish your life's goals, and there's just not much that can be done about that.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#386

Post by cosmodisk » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

I very much doubt it will work..for the devs..Developers are a special category of people,who like to earn a lot at their day job,yet tirelessly praise open source and try their best not to pay for anything.The best example of this is vue.js,which is extremely popular and used by thousands of people.The creator and main contributor is accepting Patreon, corporate sponsorship and etc.Go on his Patreon account and see how much he's pulling in.If that's the money for one of the most popular projects in JS ecosystem, the rest of the guys will be making $100/month..

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#387

Post by TBF-RnD » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

Being a full time open source independent research in an extremely tight financial spot, due to my cursed idealism, what means of surival are there for someone who can't stop working on my obsession?

I am an honest to God searcher of the truth, so I'd hate to turn this into a commercial project. Also getting a job would be a highway to a psychiatric hospital due to being overworked. Done that multiple times and wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy,

Anybody have experience on how to make this lifestyle work, or do I have to give up on my dreams and get into to the line as the rest?

http://tbf-rnd.life http://sigma.eruditenow.com

* had I been the kind of person who have enemies

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#388

Post by mgalgs » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

whatever_dude wrote: post #342

mherrmann wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Devon, I posted this comment elsewhere in this thread [1], but now feel that here is a better place to write it: It would be very cool if there was an easy way to sponsor all the projects I've starred. Then I could just pay (say) $10 per month to "support open source", without having to worry about any of the details such as picking projects. If you as GitHub then also reach out to the project maintainers and say…

This is interesting, but it raises questions, mainly: if a project is abandoned and you've still given it a star, does it continue to send money to it? Will it cause people to un-star projects? I could see having some kind of "tip amount" per project that gets taken from a pool would make a lot of sense, but not as stars.

They could factor in the repo's "pulse". More active projects get a bigger slice.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#389

Post by kradroy » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

I think this is a bad development. The allure of getting paid for something you do for free can be too great. This may lead to OSS devs, especially those who do the work for free now, expecting extrinsic reward for their work. Extrinsic reward for work that once provided intrinsic reward can lead to cessation of that work, if the external reward lessens or goes away. A new type of dev may emerge from this who won't have the same values as the ones who do it free of charge.

I can see this support feature changing things, but it won't in the way you suspect it will.

Re: GitHub Sponsors

#390

Post by tlrobinson » Thu, May 23, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

benatkin wrote: post #209

Not so fast. People have said this about gittip (now Gratipay), Patreon, Twitch, and now YouTube and Facebook. All of these have been mixed blessings. Here's an article about how Patreon doesn't work out even when everything goes smoothly: https://theoutline.com/post/2571/no-one-makes-a-living-on-pa... "After launching my Patreon, I struggled for months to find work. Patreon filled my downtime, and became a full time…

Stats like "2%: The percentage of Patreon creators who earn more than the federal minimum wage through the site" are pretty meaningless when there's zero barrier to signing up and asking people to fund your hobby.

People shouldn't be misled into have unreasonable expectations of how easy it is to make a living this way, but I'm not sure how much of that is Patreon's fault. It's a platform, you still have to create the value and attract customers.