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

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#191

Post by skinnymuch » Mon, Dec 13, 2021, 1:35 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #89

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. Nobody ever signed any social contract. You can't even navigate to the page's actual terms of service without being subjected to ads and surveillance capitalism. As if anyone even reads those terms to begin with. Their invalid assumptions are their problem. Nobody else needs to worry about this. It's their business mo…

Again to clarify I am including SaaS, paywalls, subscriptions, everything. When I say pirating. I may be using the wrong word. My bad. Are you fine with everything code related having work arounds? I’m not familiar enough with copyright to know how it relates to getting around a SaaS monthly subscription.

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#192

Post by lwouis » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 8:06 AM UTC

fregante wrote: post #167

lwouis wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money as the end-all-be-all is pretty new. I notice it a lot in American culture in particular. People have dedicated their life to all sorts of endeavors in the past, and still do of course. Big religions are a prime source of people doing large amounts of work for no money. It's quite odd to me to think that any activity i engage in should be to accumulate these tokens. Something i do stuff for the process itself.…

Yeah but… money. You can’t pay rent with smiles. Accepting donations would probably mean having to work less at their main job. Or they could re-donate it. There are people willing and able to pay, leaving those money on the table is pure waste.

> You can’t pay rent with smiles.

You do. Make an effort to think of the many cases in life where people do things for each other without money. Parents will host you for free, shelters do it, woofing or being au-pair, etc.

Open-source can be run like a business, but it can just as well be run like a shelter, or language-enthusiasts club, and any other form of human social organization.

In the same way, people do ride-sharing for a fee, yet you can also put your thumb in the air and people will gladly share their ride for free.

Humanity has many facets to it

Re: Why don't you accept donations?

#193

Post by saila » Fri, Dec 17, 2021, 3:52 AM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #183

saila wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Print ads don't have any security risks, they don't track you, they're less distracting, and they don't cost you anything extra like bandwidth. I think your analogy might hold up if ads on the web weren't so intrusive.

The analogy doesn’t need to be perfect. Every excuse can be used. Others can have excuses for why they morally believe pirating software developed by you, your friends, etc, is warranted. The end result is still having your work being used without compensation.

I don't see not viewing ads on websites for products I'll never buy as equivalent to pirating software, especially considering the additional costs of compromised security, bandwidth, etc, but it's something to think about.

I'm in the camp where I'd gladly pay a fair cost to use a site, if there were a standard way to do so. The challenge here is that many people only view any given site on an ad hoc basis rather than being a devotee who's willing to pay for a subscription. If someone figures out how to solve this, especially the UI and adoption aspects, they'll be a billionaire.