Is personal funding viable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#51

Post by boralben » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 3:53 AM UTC

ForrestN wrote: post #27

I think that it will be quite difficult to make this possible exclusively from individuals. Unless there were a threat that the projects will stop, or an offer of doing more that's pretty clear, most don't have a strong incentive to give. Something like kick starter helps to solve this in a way tipping doesn't. What about a sponsorship component? Facilitating companies sponsoring a programmer? Their github page gets…

I think sponsorship is a great idea. Look at the success Meetup has had with this strategy. The nice thing about sponsorship money is that once a contract is signed, the revenue will be consistent month to month.

The payoff for the sponsoring company will be the good reputation it gets from that developer ecosystem. There could even be a way to connect this sponsorship to recruiting developers from that ecosystem as employees (the bonus being that they are already familiar with this project)

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#52

Post by natrius » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 3:59 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #35

natrius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We don't exists to horde money, but to spend it doing things that we like." Deflation increases the incentive to hoard cash. People respond to incentives. Economies based on deflationary currencies end up suffering from problems caused by this. You may not agree, but pretty much every economist does.

I don't dispute the incentive, I only dispute the preference and the outcome.

So you're saying that people won't respond to the incentive to hoard cash? An economy based on a currency with low, predictable inflation will have less hoarding than a deflationary currency. Hoarding in itself causes deflation, so deflationary currencies risk causing a deflationary spiral.

Do you have an example of a vibrant economy based on a deflationary currency? I have several historical counterexamples.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#53

Post by prawn » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 4:15 AM UTC

Looked at one of the suggested profiles and they'd clocked under $4 and I thought "That's not even a beer." Made me think.

What about a site along similar lines - FridayBeer or whatever - that perks up via social media and supporters at the end of each week. You're having a knock-off drink in the final hours of your working day, or heading off to the pub and the site asks who or what made a difference to your week. Someone's work on an open source project meant that you continued earning a living. Maybe someone else was out there volunteering in the muck while you had it comparably easy in your office. Perhaps it's just a Twitter user or HN commenter who shared an appreciated article you might otherwise not have seen. Shout a beer or, if you're generous, a carton/case.

I think I've seen virtual buy-a-coffee or shout-a-beer sites, but can't remember them being a regularly scheduled thing that makes you consider who you'd like to thank in that moment.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#54

Post by michaelt » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 8:28 AM UTC

kiba wrote: post #35

natrius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We don't exists to horde money, but to spend it doing things that we like." Deflation increases the incentive to hoard cash. People respond to incentives. Economies based on deflationary currencies end up suffering from problems caused by this. You may not agree, but pretty much every economist does.

I don't dispute the incentive, I only dispute the preference and the outcome.

Let's say I own a business importing widgets. If there's inflation of 2%, the stock I hold just became 2% more valuable. If there's deflation of 2%, the stock I hold just became 2% less valuable.

In other words, in a deflationary economy there's less incentive to invest in productive activity and more incentive to stash cash under the mattress.

And it's not just held stock that works this way - it's also capital investments like that new more efficient widget-making machine.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#55

Post by whit537 » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 10:58 AM UTC

boralben wrote: post #51

ForrestN wrote: post #27

I think that it will be quite difficult to make this possible exclusively from individuals. Unless there were a threat that the projects will stop, or an offer of doing more that's pretty clear, most don't have a strong incentive to give. Something like kick starter helps to solve this in a way tipping doesn't. What about a sponsorship component? Facilitating companies sponsoring a programmer? Their github page gets…

I think sponsorship is a great idea. Look at the success Meetup has had with this strategy. The nice thing about sponsorship money is that once a contract is signed, the revenue will be consistent month to month. The payoff for the sponsoring company will be the good reputation it gets from that developer ecosystem. There could even be a way to connect this sponsorship to recruiting developers from that ecosystem as…

I made a ticket for this:

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/106

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#56

Post by whit537 » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 11:55 AM UTC

TimJRobinson wrote: post #49

I love this concept! Another idea that could work well is partnering up with some influential bloggers / open source evangelists and holding an international "Feed a coder" day, which brings awareness to the open source community and asks people to make a donation to their favourite projects / libraries / Wordpress plugins on that day. There are a lot of Wordpress Bloggers out there who would be happy to donate to th…

Yes, please! How do we make this happen?

Are you on GitHub? Can we move this conversation there?

https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/109

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#57

Post by whit537 » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 12:05 PM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #47

Hey Whit, kill the weekly payment thing and make tips one off payments. Have a look at the freemium model that is all the rage these days. Apparently players hate subscriptions and would much rather pay for one off consumables. Also, allow tips of any size. $2048 or $4096 would not be crazy.

Sounds like a fork. :-)

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#58

Post by mindcrime » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 2:34 PM UTC

natrius wrote: post #52

kiba wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dispute the incentive, I only dispute the preference and the outcome.

So you're saying that people won't respond to the incentive to hoard cash? An economy based on a currency with low, predictable inflation will have less hoarding than a deflationary currency. Hoarding in itself causes deflation, so deflationary currencies risk causing a deflationary spiral. Do you have an example of a vibrant economy based on a deflationary currency? I have several historical counterexamples.

So you're saying that people won't respond to the incentive to hoard cash?

I'm hungry... really f%!#ng hungry, right now. I have $10.00, which - today - buys me 2 hotdogs and a soda. But, if I wait a year, that same $10.00 will buy me a nice steak, some corn chowder, a side of sweet potato fries and a margarita. What do I do? Hmmm....

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#59

Post by whit537 » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 4:15 PM UTC

kingkilr wrote: post #10

juanbyrge wrote: post #6

What's wrong with them getting jobs?

We have jobs right now, it's not like we're hobos. But if you ask any open source developer what's stopping them from adding cool new feature X, fixing bug Y, or starting project Z that they're excited about the answer distribution will look like: 25% - I haven't needed that yet 75% - I don't have the time .00001 % - That is completely technically infeasaible (Numbers may not add up to 100 after rounding). I'll write…

For the record: http://alexgaynor.net/2012/jul/04/why-personal-funding/

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#60

Post by sgornick » Thu, Jul 05, 2012, 5:32 PM UTC

2367o1 wrote: post #50

nhaehnle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most clear-cut argument against Bitcoin is that it is a ridiculous waste of energy. The nature of mining in the protocol implies that if Bitcoin takes off on any significant scale, there is a dichotomy going on: either there are so few miners that single large actors can dominate the total hashing power of the network, making it vulnerable; or, a significant fraction of the total world computing power goes toward…

Note how ridiculous the counter arguments. I too have made this argument several times and I have gotten similar nonsense in response. I recall reading a story about some guy who was visited by police as they thought he was running an indoor pot growing operation, only to find after searching the premises that he was a bitcoin miner. It takes quite a power surge to draw that kind of attention from police. Bitcoin is…

Bitcoin payments for person-to-person can be done on mobile. Merchants can run their own point-of-sale or use a hosted solution (or, us a mobile / tablet, just like an individual).

For merchants, just like if VISA/Mastercard/Debit card, etc., goes out due to power problems (and there there is no battery backup or local generation), a merchant can't accept payments until power is restored.

As far as power outages for those mining -- there is no disturbance to Bitcoin even for lots of power distruptions. If the entire world goes dark, your inability to spend bitcoins will be the least of your problems.