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Tildes – a non-profit community site

tildes.net

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Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#21

Post by _ps6d »

astrea wrote: post #18

What's to stop this from falling into the same trap as always? They grow, user donations aren't enough to sustain them anymore so they have to look into alternative ways of getting money, users hate it, they start a spinoff that promises to be better, rinse and repeat.

That trap happens because of sites basing themselves on venture capital, advertising, and chasing growth/profit.

Tildes is a non-profit with no advertising or investors, so none of that pressure is there. There's no danger of donations not being enough to sustain it. The expenses are already far more than covered and it could easily stay running in its current state forever.

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#22

Post by city41 »

_ps6d wrote: post #21
astrea wrote: post #18

What's to stop this from falling into the same trap as always? They grow, user donations aren't enough to sustain them anymore so they have to look into alternative ways of getting money, users hate it, they start a spinoff that promises to be better, rinse and repeat.

That trap happens because of sites basing themselves on venture capital, advertising, and chasing growth/profit. Tildes is a non-profit with no advertising or investors, so none of that pressure is there. There's no danger of donations not being enough to sustain it. The expenses are already far more than covered and it could easily stay running in its current state forever.

How do you know donations will keep up with usage? I felt like the OP was referring to a situation where Tildes takes off and becomes large organically.

I'm currently building a site that I am considering attempting to make possible via donations, much like Tildes. Any advice you can share? How well have donations been working? Any gotchas? Thanks for any insights you can share!

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#23

Post by _ps6d »

city41 wrote: post #22
_ps6d wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That trap happens because of sites basing themselves on venture capital, advertising, and chasing growth/profit. Tildes is a non-profit with no advertising or investors, so none of that pressure is there. There's no danger of donations not being enough to sustain it. The expenses are already far more than covered and it could easily stay running in its current state forever.

How do you know donations will keep up with usage? I felt like the OP was referring to a situation where Tildes takes off and becomes large organically. I'm currently building a site that I am considering attempting to make possible via donations, much like Tildes. Any advice you can share? How well have donations been working? Any gotchas? Thanks for any insights you can share!

You can see the site's current expenses and donations here: https://tildes.net/financials

The costs to keep it running are already covered by over 10x with the current donations, and I believe the existing servers could easily handle at least 100x the current traffic level.

In terms of advice, I'd say:

- Don't go into debt (or take any investments) to launch the site.

- Build something lightweight so the costs are low. Use dedicated server(s), avoid cloud hosting like AWS.

- Incorporate as a non-profit if you can.

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#24

Post by 1MachineElf »

astrea wrote: post #18

What's to stop this from falling into the same trap as always? They grow, user donations aren't enough to sustain them anymore so they have to look into alternative ways of getting money, users hate it, they start a spinoff that promises to be better, rinse and repeat.

Starting a spinoff is encouraged - it's open source: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#25

Post by 1MachineElf »

_ps6d wrote: post #5

(Tildes is my site) The best explanation of the site's goals is probably still the original announcement blog post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes Here's the discussion on HN at the time (note that the site was totally private at that time and you couldn't even view it without an invite yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093 Feel free to ask any questions, and if you're interested in an invite…

Thank you for creating Tildes, and open sourcing it.

I was wondering if federation, like with GNU Social/Mastodon, was part of the overall roadmap. I.e., having two separate Tildes instances that can interact with each other.

EDIT: Ok, I see it isn't planned according to the discussion here: https://tildes.net/~tildes/c8p/how_would_federation_work_wit...

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#27

Post by nexuist »

city41 wrote: post #22
_ps6d wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That trap happens because of sites basing themselves on venture capital, advertising, and chasing growth/profit. Tildes is a non-profit with no advertising or investors, so none of that pressure is there. There's no danger of donations not being enough to sustain it. The expenses are already far more than covered and it could easily stay running in its current state forever.

How do you know donations will keep up with usage? I felt like the OP was referring to a situation where Tildes takes off and becomes large organically. I'm currently building a site that I am considering attempting to make possible via donations, much like Tildes. Any advice you can share? How well have donations been working? Any gotchas? Thanks for any insights you can share!

Not OP but server costs are not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. A $5 DO droplet can easily sustain 500-1000 active users. If you were doing video or audio streaming I could see concerns, but at the core of it all the server is doing is reading and writing strings and that's not a very intensive process. A $200/mo server could handle millions of daily visits, and you'd likely not grow further than that without running into the actual wall: labor.

That's where things get dicey. You have to pay people, and ideally yourself, for the labor you invest into the project. As Tildes is a non profit it's already clear that the developer is building it out of love and not a desire to sustain his or her lifestyle. If the developer wanted a developer salary or enough income to hire another developer, though, I agree that donations wouldn't be adequate enough. That's when you turn to selling features (i.e. Reddit coins) or selling ads.

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#28

Post by Semaphor »

there are several people asking for invites. pm me or reply here and I'll invite you (Until my ten invites run out). In roughly 7h because I'm going to sleep now.

In a recent census we realized we have very few non-tech people and women, so please help us even the scales by reaching out if you see this ;)

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#29

Post by tobenortobe »

_ps6d wrote: post #5

(Tildes is my site) The best explanation of the site's goals is probably still the original announcement blog post: https://blog.tildes.net/announcing-tildes Here's the discussion on HN at the time (note that the site was totally private at that time and you couldn't even view it without an invite yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17103093 Feel free to ask any questions, and if you're interested in an invite…

What tech stack you are using? Ok found from ur link, sorry, here it is[0]

https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/site-implementation#use-m...

Re: Tildes – a non-profit community site

#30

Post by neodymiumphish »

Semaphor wrote: post #28

there are several people asking for invites. pm me or reply here and I'll invite you (Until my ten invites run out). In roughly 7h because I'm going to sleep now. In a recent census we realized we have very few non-tech people and women, so please help us even the scales by reaching out if you see this ;)

I would love an invite!
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