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The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

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Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#231

Post by BeFlatXIII »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #146
laurex wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bootstrapping social tech ain’t easy. Expectations that this tech is free, plus the immediate need for support and safety for general populations mean that it’s very different than say, B2B SaaS.

> Bootstrapping social tech ain’t easy. Expectations that this tech is free, plus the immediate need for support and safety for general populations Start with and focus on an audience that has different expectations than the general population.

Remember when The Face Book was for college kids only and GMail was invite-only? That's how to start.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#232

Post by aleph_minus_one »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #231
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bootstrapping social tech ain’t easy. Expectations that this tech is free, plus the immediate need for support and safety for general populations Start with and focus on an audience that has different expectations than the general population.

Remember when The Face Book was for college kids only and GMail was invite-only? That's how to start.

These are indeed possible examples.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#233

Post by MomoXenosaga »

klipt wrote: post #62
laurex wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very interesting and telling that most of the technology that connects us does not have us as a customer, or a financial beneficiary. One of the key aspects of technofeudalism is the extractive nature of most of our platforms.

Because given the choice it seems many people prefer free with ads to paid? I'm just thankful that mobile phone networks haven't switched to a "free with ads interspersed into your texts" model yet. (Of course there are still ads in my texts, but at least those are officially spam rather than network endorsed.)

Actually they tried. WhatsApp fucked them up.

Literally in a span of months SMS usage went the way of the dinosaur.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#234

Post by LoveMortuus »

sirspacey wrote: post #132

Excellent, balanced post. We’re at the end of a grand experiment of “you can take VC money and deliver a tech with new values, one that people want.” The only people still claiming you can just haven’t run out of their last funding round… yet. We have 20 years of evidence on what tech businesses can be built on the Internet that make money. It’s narrow and mostly can’t solve the problems that remain. The escape hatch…

Regarding the subscription revenue, it's doable, but you kind of have to start with it, not pivot to it mid-game, because that way your whole company and infrastructure is built with what the subscription model can bring you. I think many of the tech companies are just too big for the product that they manage.

>We have 20 years of evidence on what tech businesses can be built on the Internet that make money. It’s narrow and mostly can’t solve the problems that remain.

People will also want to invest their money into what they think/believe will be the future. My guess is that internet/IT is complex enough that most people don't understand it and see it as “magic” and because it's “magic” who knows what's possible, might as well pour in millions.

But as you've said, the reality always catches up to the truth.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#235

Post by DeathArrow »

moomin wrote: post #223
DeathArrow wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Politics” is a component of brand value, but it’s got nothing to do with reach, which is falling through the floor. I think reach was falling because of political pressure. > I seem to recall you were arguing elsewhere on this thread that company owners should only care about the money a company makes. I was arguing that the goal of a company is to generate profit. That should be the goal. If business owners do th…

I'm not sure what mechanism you're ascribing to reach falling due to "political pressure". Who's exerting this pressure? On whom? Why am I still using the site despite being a dyed in the wool leftie? You say a company should have the goal of generating profit. According to what moral imperative?

>You say a company should have the goal of generating profit. According to what moral imperative?

According to market economy, not to a moral imperative.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#236

Post by GrinningFool »

jrexilius wrote: post #230

I think people imply too much evil-intent with funding rather than understanding the mechanics of it. If you take money from an investor you have an obligation to them to make a return on that money in a finite time frame. The VC has LPs who want their money back in a finite window, so paying tiny dividends over 10 years to see a return on capital and some profit just doesn't work. Building a low-margin, profitable b…

> have a reasonable path to return, say at least 5x the capital in 5 years

Your definition of reasonable is not the same as mine.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#237

Post by burrish »

jrexilius wrote: post #230

I think people imply too much evil-intent with funding rather than understanding the mechanics of it. If you take money from an investor you have an obligation to them to make a return on that money in a finite time frame. The VC has LPs who want their money back in a finite window, so paying tiny dividends over 10 years to see a return on capital and some profit just doesn't work. Building a low-margin, profitable b…

Thank you for the clarification

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#239

Post by lacrimacida »

unholythree wrote: post #110
thereisnospork wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if the progenitors of email thought to require e-stamps, say a thousand emails for a buck. There's a parallel universe where 'Email co.' is a major tech player comparable to Google. Not sure it's a better universe, but bears consideration.

I remember a joke (or conspiracy theory) from the 90’s that the US Postal Service wanted to charge people per email.

Maybe not USPS but it would be okay to pay for it somehow to make it harder for scammers, spammers and other harbingers of ruin.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#240

Post by moomin »

DeathArrow wrote: post #235
moomin wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what mechanism you're ascribing to reach falling due to "political pressure". Who's exerting this pressure? On whom? Why am I still using the site despite being a dyed in the wool leftie? You say a company should have the goal of generating profit. According to what moral imperative?

>You say a company should have the goal of generating profit. According to what moral imperative? According to market economy, not to a moral imperative.

Honestly think at this point I should recommend hbomberguy’s video on “Woke Brands”.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg

I’ll appreciate his politics are way to the left of yours and he’s making this point for a left wing audience, but the TL;DR is: a lot of what you’re perceiving as politics here is literally the market economy acting to maximise profit.

His perspective is that _left-wing_ people shouldn’t be conned into thinking this is about anything other than profit maximisation.

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