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Ghost 3.0

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Re: Ghost 3.0

#31

Post by ndarilek »

johnonolan wrote: post #24
ndarilek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't looked at Ghost in a while. The subscription system looks neat. I'd recently considered launching an indie game development site for a very niche style of gaming (audio-only) that could probably benefit from a Patreon-style model, but my margins would be so low that the Patreon cut would be hefty for little to no network effect benefit, and I know better than to try rolling my own. Is there any mechanism for…

At the moment we've just got a single plan with either a monthly or yearly price point, and adding support for more flexible subscription options is high on the todo list to work toward next!

Nice, should be good enough for now for me. Is there a GitHub issue or something I can watch for updates?

Re: Ghost 3.0

#32

Post by velcrovan »

nickjj wrote: post #20
83457 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization "A nonprofit organization, also known as a non-business entity,[1] not-for-profit organization,[2] or nonprofit institution,[3] is dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view. In economic terms, it is an organization that uses its surplus of the revenues to further achieve its ultimate objective, rather than distributi…

That's still very confusing. Surplus sounds like anything beyond hosting costs to run the service, but the hosting costs is likely no where near 5 million dollars so a majority of it is surplus. Does that mean no one gets a salary or is a salary part of the costs to run the business instead of being a "member"? If salaries are included who dictates what the income tax exempt salary is? I'm not trolling either. What y…

Some Business 101 for you: Salaries are separate from profits. Salaries are a cost to the business just like rent and hosting costs. Profits come after all the costs. (Salaries are also taxed as personal income just like at any other business.)

The $5m over 6 years is $833k in revenue per year. Not a lot, and salaries/benefits probably take up the biggest part of that, leaving very little profit. Which is the way it should be everywhere in my opinion.

I applied to work at Ghost a while back and still would love to work for them. Not only do they get salaries, they have amazing benefits (by US standards). Being a non-profit means two things: a) profits are reinvested in the business rather than distributed to owners, and b) Ghost isn’t, and can never be, an acquisition target by other companies or investors. That kind of stability is a huge appeal for me, both as a user and a worker.

Re: Ghost 3.0

#34

Post by IshKebab »

nickjj wrote: post #20
83457 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization "A nonprofit organization, also known as a non-business entity,[1] not-for-profit organization,[2] or nonprofit institution,[3] is dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view. In economic terms, it is an organization that uses its surplus of the revenues to further achieve its ultimate objective, rather than distributi…

That's still very confusing. Surplus sounds like anything beyond hosting costs to run the service, but the hosting costs is likely no where near 5 million dollars so a majority of it is surplus. Does that mean no one gets a salary or is a salary part of the costs to run the business instead of being a "member"? If salaries are included who dictates what the income tax exempt salary is? I'm not trolling either. What y…

I think you underestimate salaries. They are allowed to pay themselves. Extra money can be used to pay future salaries, fund other projects etc. They can probably even accumulate it to use as an endowment, I'm not sure about that though.

I'm not exactly sure what happens if the founders decide their salaries will be $1m/year. I'm not aware of anything explicitly stopping that - some charities pay their CEOs hundreds of thousands.

Re: Ghost 3.0

#35

Post by EnderMB »

I remember when Ghost was released years ago, and I remember thinking "wow, these people have actually gone and released a solid blogging platform to replace the shitshow that is WordPress!". At the time, I was making some decent freelance money from porting botched WordPress builds onto the Umbraco CMS, so my opinion of WP has always been pretty low. Ghost looked like a fantastic publishing tool that was ahead of its time.

Obviously, things have changed a lot since then, and to be honest I never really kept much of an eye on Ghost until two people I used to work with started working for Ghost. Now, Ghost is being pushed as a headless CMS, and seems heavily aligned to the JAM stack.

From what I've seen and heard, this looks like a fantastic release and you should all be proud of this milestone, and just how far Ghost has come. With that being said, there's a niggling thought in my head that won't go away.

What's to stop Ghost from becoming WordPress v2?

Re: Ghost 3.0

#37

Post by omarhaneef »

nickjj wrote: post #20
83457 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization "A nonprofit organization, also known as a non-business entity,[1] not-for-profit organization,[2] or nonprofit institution,[3] is dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view. In economic terms, it is an organization that uses its surplus of the revenues to further achieve its ultimate objective, rather than distributi…

That's still very confusing. Surplus sounds like anything beyond hosting costs to run the service, but the hosting costs is likely no where near 5 million dollars so a majority of it is surplus. Does that mean no one gets a salary or is a salary part of the costs to run the business instead of being a "member"? If salaries are included who dictates what the income tax exempt salary is? I'm not trolling either. What y…

Non-profits can draw large salaries:

https://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at...

These are all medical, so that is the right comparison, but charities can also have high salaries:

https://www.charitywatch.org/top-charity-salaries

And, I am not taking a position here, but if you feel strongly that this should not be the case, there is this video for the counter-argument:

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_abou...

Re: Ghost 3.0

#38

Post by superturkey650 »

nickjj wrote: post #20
83457 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization "A nonprofit organization, also known as a non-business entity,[1] not-for-profit organization,[2] or nonprofit institution,[3] is dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view. In economic terms, it is an organization that uses its surplus of the revenues to further achieve its ultimate objective, rather than distributi…

That's still very confusing. Surplus sounds like anything beyond hosting costs to run the service, but the hosting costs is likely no where near 5 million dollars so a majority of it is surplus. Does that mean no one gets a salary or is a salary part of the costs to run the business instead of being a "member"? If salaries are included who dictates what the income tax exempt salary is? I'm not trolling either. What y…

You can still receive a salary, and as far as I know there are no limits on what you can pay yourself. However, you must have a predefined salary and you are audited regularly to ensure there isn't fraud. However, outside of the overhead (salaries, office, servers, etc) any further profits have to be reinvested into the business. This means that if they get 5 million dollars and only spend 4 million, no one gets to take home the extra million. It has to go back into the business.

This is in contrast to for-profit companies where that money can go to the owner (private company), or to shareholders (public company).

The Wikipedia link posted above probably has a better explanation, this is just my understanding due to my SO working at one.

Re: Ghost 3.0

#40

Post by egypturnash »

johnonolan wrote: post #24
ndarilek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't looked at Ghost in a while. The subscription system looks neat. I'd recently considered launching an indie game development site for a very niche style of gaming (audio-only) that could probably benefit from a Patreon-style model, but my margins would be so low that the Patreon cut would be hefty for little to no network effect benefit, and I know better than to try rolling my own. Is there any mechanism for…

At the moment we've just got a single plan with either a monthly or yearly price point, and adding support for more flexible subscription options is high on the todo list to work toward next!

Ah, this answers the question I had about membership models - I was wondering if it has the option to pay per-thing like Patreon does. ($x per Thing posted, with an optional cap of $y, processed at the end of the month.) Works a lot better for what I do than a flat per-month.
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