Why don't you accept donations? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#171

Post by account42 » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

VRay wrote: post #159

beebmam wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an alternative solution that enables people to produce content that doesn't require them to make an income through advertising or subscriptions. It can be accomplished through higher taxes and a universal basic income. Essentially: ensure that all people on earth have their basic needs met. A lot of people will produce incredible creative work, and it has been shown time and time again that government support…

How much UBI could we realistically afford right now? Keeping in mind that there'd be an incredibly huge reduction in economic productivity, since pretty much everyone hates working I'm guessing we could actually keep people fed, but I'm wondering if we'd end up living in really crappy shacks without first world quality utilities I dunno if I'd want a UBI utopia if it requires a 1700s-quality lifestyle

> Keeping in mind that there'd be an incredibly huge reduction in economic productivity, since pretty much everyone hates working

Would there be? There would certainly be some changes. Less desirable jobs would have to pay more. People would have more power to demand better working conditions. But the idea that the majority of beople would just be fine with "basic income" and then sit on their ass all day instead of trying to earn more to afford whatever shinies they want or just because there is something they enjoy doing. There are also a ton of bullshit jobs that really do not contribute anything - freeing up those people to do whatever they want might have a positive effect.

Eventually humanity will get to a point where automation can provide all of your needs as well as maintain that automation. On our way there, the hours worked per person should be going down.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#172

Post by 999900000999 » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #152

999900000999 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kickstarter can claim to be whatever it wants, but if I say if you give me $2,000 I'll do my best to delivermagical super shoes... And I end up taking all the money and spending it a 2-month trip to Canada,I've sort of done something wrong. No matter what Kickstarter says, you can definitely be sued if you take someone's money and don't deliver what you promised. I absolutely loved Kickstarter when it came out, but I…

I think Kickstarter just wasn’t ever for you. It’s for folks like me who have no need to keep track of this stuff. I just want the thing to exist.

I backed a few Kickstarters where the creator just ran off with money and quit.

Their is a ton of pressure to over promise, take Code Hero.

I checked out the free demo and loved it enough to back it. Then the creator promised a bunch of infeasible things, like teaching you how to make an online game. The original goal , show off basic programming, was solid.

Right after the campaign ended, the project disappeared.

I'm working on my own game now. And while I might let people pay what they want for a demo of it, I'm not going to promise a bunch of stuff I can't realistically do in order to fundraise.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#173

Post by account42 » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

kreeben wrote: post #85

skinnymuch wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption is that most are not ripping the ads out of the magazine without seeing them at all. The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it. You can make all sorts of loose statements like this then draw the line where you feel it’s wrong. It will still be arbitrary. To continue stretching examples. Developers chose to release software as is. Through some comb…

>> The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it This is the antithesis of what I want the internet to be, so opt me out of that, please, because I'm going to come hither and taketh in that which I care to taketh in, that and nothing else.

People forget that browsers are called user agents because they are supposed to operate on behalf of the user. That includes displaying the content how the user wants it and not how the server operator wants it.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#174

Post by matheusmoreira » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #173

kreeben wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The assumption and social contract was the page is sent to you with ads and you take in all of it This is the antithesis of what I want the internet to be, so opt me out of that, please, because I'm going to come hither and taketh in that which I care to taketh in, that and nothing else.

People forget that browsers are called user agents because they are supposed to operate on behalf of the user. That includes displaying the content how the user wants it and not how the server operator wants it.

Exactly! The browser exists to serve us, not to enable some company's abusive business model.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#175

Post by account42 » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

quickthrower2 wrote: post #151

notum wrote: post #2

Because the original blocker: AdBlock, did. And some donated more than others. The rest is history.

Wikipedia also accepts donations

Wikipedia also keeps devoting significant screen space to asking for more donations from time to time even though they have more than enough money to keep the site running indefinitely. Should donations dry up with they reduce their (largely non-Wikipedia-related) expenses or will they just get more agressive in asking for moeney?

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#176

Post by one_off_comment » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

BEEdwards wrote: post #54

one_off_comment wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a personal choice. I respect their choice.

Working for free devalues the work of others and give them an excuse to not even offer pay next time.

They'll get a rude awakening and realize OP is being nice and that's not standard operating procedure.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#177

Post by flatiron » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

sverhagen wrote: post #113

TylerE wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to justify as a security measure, given the amount of malicious ads trying to serve up exploits.

Maybe they don't browse the web either, I mean... unless it's 100% justified for work...

Yeah I work from home and have a personal device on my desk. I wouldn’t even check the weather on my office device!

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#178

Post by BeetleB » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

fregante wrote: post #118

BeetleB wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with not accepting rewards for your work.

It's kind of weird to work for free though, isn't it? Sure it's something we like doing, but I really see no reason to reject free money. For uBlock this free money would be a fairly large amount, I'm sure. Even if that'd require some legal setup, I assume those fees will be largely covered.

> It's kind of weird to work for free though, isn't it?

Agree with the sibling. Trying to get compensated for everything you do - particularly hobbies - is what is considered weird in most of the world.

> For uBlock this free money would be a fairly large amount, I'm sure. Even if that'd require some legal setup, I assume those fees will be largely covered.

I think you're highly overestimating how much he'd get. I recall many years ago another developer stopped receiving donations and he posted in detail how much he would receive. It really wasn't that much, but while it may just have covered all the overhead fees, when you factor in the time spent on record keeping, etc, it was a net loss.

> Or they could re-donate it.

Consider this his way of trying to make things more efficient, and giving people the hint to donate elsewhere rather than him being the conduit to donate elsewhere :-)

> leaving those money on the table is pure waste.

So are so many aspects of our lives: For the majority of folks, eating at an average restaurant and paying tips is leaving money on the table - both literally and figuratively. If you look at the efficiency of how people use (and waste) money, you'll see almost everyone does it - including anyone who buys a car less than 6 years old.

I don't know much about the author, but say you have a job and 2+ kids. You are very likely in the "negative" when it comes to free time. You value time more than money, and only want money if it can buy you more time. In this case, it's really not clear whether the money he would get from donations would be worth the tax hassle alone. Also: Consider that many of us do our own taxes, so it's not a matter of "just throw this at my tax person".

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#179

Post by agumonkey » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #6

> no donations = no expectations No donations should result in no expectations , but unfortunately all sorts of people will have all sorts of expectations from you when you release an open-source project, donations or not.

We need a tor donate. People pour into a global sink, and the money gets wired to a pool of most useful projects. So nobody can have ill feelings toward on thing in particular.

double blind charity

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#180

Post by quickthrower2 » Tue, Dec 07, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #175

quickthrower2 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia also accepts donations

Wikipedia also keeps devoting significant screen space to asking for more donations from time to time even though they have more than enough money to keep the site running indefinitely. Should donations dry up with they reduce their (largely non-Wikipedia-related) expenses or will they just get more agressive in asking for moeney?

Wikipedia is probably in a strange problem where they have more than enough money (they do have a lot of staff though?) and really we would want them to keep going for hundreds of years, so I think it is good for them to keep an enormous runway. We can't trust governments to fund it, as it may not say nice things about those governments and they may want to change that. And by they I mean the USA which would probably end up being the biggest donor and thus get veto powers.