Mastodon is great. It's just unfortunate that the number of people is on the low side.
At some point more users would probably make everything worse. Having a low user count is probably a good thing.
I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
111–120 of 497 posts
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#112He’s also receiving €1 million as a one-time compensation. Not quite enough to retire on that.
You're assuming zero savings to begin with, which is a weird assumption.
His salary from Mastadon annual reports 2021-2023 were 28,800, then 36,000, then 60,000 euros annually (reports for 2024 and 2025 are not released yet), so unless he had side gigs or deals, I wouldn't expect he has a ton of savings at the moment. Glad he is getting a decent payout with his exit, though unfortunately a windfall like this in one year offers less take-home than if he was paid this over several years.
I really hope he's able to find success and better work-life balance in his future endeavours
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#113"The fediverse is an island within an increasingly dystopian capitalist hellscape." This seems like an extreme view to me. It's not so bad
dunno what world you live in, but that was the line that resonated the most for me...
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#114Mastodon seems pretty unhealthy to me.
I logged in for the first time in months a few days ago and it was mostly angry memes, a surprising number of which were celebrating violence and murder. This is despite me aggressively muting people who post that sort of thing.
I hope they find a niche, but the cultural damage may already be done.
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#115> The fediverse is an island within an increasingly dystopian capitalist hellscape. It’s telling that people like this who use “capitalism” as a pejorative never have any compelling alternative to offer beyond “let experts in the state micromanage everyone and everything”.
You would really have to ask a person to know that.
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#116"I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job." -- Bill Murray
In addition to that: With money you can always buy popularity easily, but converting popularity into money is hard work at least. I'd even say that turning fame into significant wealth is an art only few have truly mastered.
And if you can't buy popularity you can always buy a really high wall.
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damn, where is Mastodon getting €1M from? Also where do you get from that you can't retire with €1M. It seems very feasible as long as you keep a frugal lifestyle.
Depends on your age and where you live. If you're single, no kids, and don't need healthcare, sure. Where I live (not expensive like SV), they recommend $90K+ to "live comfortably". A 1 bedroom apartment is $19K/year. Insurance rates vary widely, but premium + deductible - you may want to assume $10K/year. So you're already at $30K without eating, Internet, utility bills and transportation. I'm sure one could live of…
Healthcare is taken care of by his taxes.
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#118Fantastic! Now he's not there to block progress [0], can we remove Mastodon's intentional DDoS please and just include the link preview in the toot . Add a disclaimer on the UI saying "link preview comes from toot" if it makes you happy. Then Mastodon can be a good web citizen and not a force for evil. It's only been an open problem for 7 years. Nothing in the grand scheme of things. [0] https://github.com/mastodon/m…
I don't see his linked comment as blocking progress. Both of those questions are very valid and something I'd expect from a good core maintainer. Disclaimer: I don't have any additional context.
There are other examples. He single-handedly prevented quote tweets from being implemented in Mastodon because "they lead to toxicity", disregarding the benefits of quote tweets and the barrage of feedback supporting it.
Meanwhile, Bluesky implemented QTs in a perfect way: you can detach your post from quotes or prevent quoting entirely if you want, but the feature is there.
Re: I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
€1M would not even cover the property tax to retire in the cheapest bay area home.
Uh, that's one of the most expensive places to live in the world. That's kind of the opposite of frugal. It's very doable in most of the US, as that's almost double what most retired people have, let alone the rest of the world.
Retired people generally are a lot older and get income from things like Social Security. They also get medicare taking care of health insurance. Between those two you need a lot more money to retire before you turn 65 vs after.
Now I believe he is in Europe so different rules apply, but they have similar things there). I don't know the rules in his country (or even his country), some are more friendly than others, but still the money won't go as far when you retire before the system wants you to.