The quiet death of Ello's big dreams • Hacker News Board

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#261

Post by eterevsky » Mon, Jan 22, 2024, 9:47 AM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #250

eterevsky wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Substack is a pretty clear example of subscription model working well. There's also Patreon that is doing very well. I wouldn't discount YouTube Premium and Twitter subscriptions. They don't cover the majority of users, but are a viable option if you (like me) can't tolerate ads.

Substack and Patreon both largely work because the top producers there got popular somewhere else first and then brought a large audience with them. It's not clear if a creator economy consisting entirely or primarily of platforms like this would be possible. Hell, at least at first, Ello even tried this same technique. It was meant to be an online gathering place for pre-existing communities of artists who already k…

> value is in the network itself, not the platform

The value is always in the content and authors, not in the platform, so in that sense Substack or Pateron are not unique. The question is how exactly are you going to monetize this content.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#262

Post by Andrex » Thu, Jan 25, 2024, 3:23 AM UTC

mawise wrote: post #10

I started building an open source private blogging system[1] when my first kid was born, and it eventually evolved into the skeleton of a social network--but fully decentralized using RSS and self- (or paid-) hosting. I concluded the only way for a network to actually avoid selling out was for there to be nothing to sell. If I give away the software, and don't control the network then there is no need for users to tr…

I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR YEARS

It's over a week since this article hit the HN front page so you may never see this comment, but thank you for this.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#263

Post by bane » Thu, Jan 25, 2024, 6:15 PM UTC

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…

Bootstrapping also offers a better route towards pivoting into a lifestyle business if the market growth VCs need just isn't there.

Re: The quiet death of Ello's big dreams

#264

Post by mawise » Mon, Jan 29, 2024, 10:08 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #262

mawise wrote: post #10

I started building an open source private blogging system[1] when my first kid was born, and it eventually evolved into the skeleton of a social network--but fully decentralized using RSS and self- (or paid-) hosting. I concluded the only way for a network to actually avoid selling out was for there to be nothing to sell. If I give away the software, and don't control the network then there is no need for users to tr…

I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR YEARS It's over a week since this article hit the HN front page so you may never see this comment, but thank you for this.

You're welcome! Feel free to drop me a note on the contact form at havenweb.org--I'd love to hear more about what had you looking for something like this and (if you try it out) how you like it!