>"A few weeks later I added a new “private” group of screencasts for GitHub sponsors only.
[ screenshot of a video being restricted to sponsors only ]
THIS is the secret sauce."
I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
501–510 of 510 posts
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure and this is kind of what I do. I have a sole proprietorship and sell stickers and in the future some minor features on the site. Of course it has the overhead of setting up the business and all the accounting/tax stuff (unless you use a service for that which takes ~5 % of your revenue).
Is it illegal if you sell an item/service/upgrade for a clearly absurd price? The obvious workaround here is to paywall some tiny feature with choose-your-own-price, or perhaps offer something akin to Reddit Gold. I presume the law already thought of that?
Surely there's a difference between ”Buy this PNG file for €200” and “Buy it for €10,000,000”
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#503$100k is still not even close to how much you can make in SV as an engineer. Specially an engineer at this caliber. But working on OSS full time is probably 100x more fulfilling than building CRUD for a boring ad company.
If I'd take $100K and move back to my country, I'd have the lifestyle 99% of devs in SV could only dream of. It wouldn't even come to my mind that I would want to work for FAANG.
You think that initially. But vacation costs the same or everyone and you also wanna splurge too. Appliances cost same, building costs slowly approach rest of Europe.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
How common are bootstrapped (i.e. non-wealthy, non VC-funded) entrepreneurs in Finland?
From what I can tell this has nothing to do with that. Anything that could be considered commerce or an exchange for goods (even abstract goods) falls outside of it. This only applies to donations ; it's just that the internet has created this in-between category where "donations" are made to someone working on a product that can't really be "sold" in the traditional way, and the law doesn't have a proper carve-out f…
It was just a simple question.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is collecting money with an expectation of additional content in the future. So it isn't just a purchase. A subscription is closer, but sponsor adds the implication that your sponsorship is what allows the content creator to keep doing it. Also, one of the dictionary definitions for sponsor is: "provide funds for (a project or activity or the person carrying it out)." So it seems accurate enough of a term to me.
"provide funds for (a project or activity or the person carrying it out)." So does a subscription or purchase. So not sure what you are trying to imply with this. He gives access to stuff if you pay him money, with a promise of more stuff in the future. This just sounds like an subscription to me. While I do agree there is a disconnect between open source dev payment and business, I don't think mislabeling a subscrip…
we can argue about semantics but it's not really productive, imo.
He implies nothing, he states that sponsor definition covers the OP use case. Having more than one word to describe the same thing is not surprising.
You imply that your definition of sponsor exclude OP use case and there is mislabeling.
The interesting point is the revenue issue in open-source business. This guy solved it for him and present for all how he did it, with no lies and no hypocrisy.
That someone got hung up on a correct word usage shed an interesting light on where this disconnect between open source dev payment and money really lies.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure you understand the Scandinavian/Nordic psyche. My non-Scandinavian girlfriend never understood why people pay for the bus there if they never get checked. Or why people bother to leave money in a little box at an unmanned coffee/waffle/etc stand in the middle of nowhere. But most do as it is the right thing to do, guilt free. And if there is a slight chance the tax authorities might contact him the guilt/emb…
I’m on the other side of a Nordic relationship and some times I have similar thoughts coming from a third world country. My partner’s mentality seem like utopia to me. I would love to understand it a bit better, do you have any references or reading material that discuss this psyche?
Not from a Nordic country, but with some similar-minded tendencies.
You understand that you enjoy living in a system that you can trust. You understand that being able to trust the system means that the system has to trust you. You value a working system more than a petty dollar or some other short-sighted piece of self-interest, because you get more benefit from having the system work in your favor than taking a little for yourself but eroding/ruining the system in the same go. If most people do the right thing, the system works and everyone benefits.
Simple as that! It's the opposite of the tragedy of the commons.
In non-utopian countries, you have to make an advance deposit into the system and may never do enough to make it universally trusted. People may never stop jaywalking, or taking a free coffee/waffle/etc. from the unmanned stand, or cheating your taxes with family income and business expenses. But I'm doing well for myself, so what am I really losing by doing the right thing? Life already put me ahead. I'd rather contribute a small part to a working system I can trust, than to grab another small pie just for myself.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
You also need a company so you don't lose your house and life's savings if you're sued, too. That's what freelancers primarily create companies for. IRS doesn't really let you take advantage of any tax loopholes unless you employ a bunch of other people.
I don't understand characterizing compliance with tax law as using "loopholes." What are you referring to?
Do you play board games?
Which games don't have edge cases, loopholes, exploits?
Of the games which can be "gamed", are they more or less complex than any given tax code?
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Accepting sponsorships like this is not non-profit. You still have to report it as income and pay taxes on it.
True donations are not taxable in the UK, because they are not part of a trade. In other words, they are not given in exchange for something; the something is freely given without the donation. Of course there is the question of whether something is truly a donation. But charities have to deal with that question, so there are formulaic approaches to it, and advisors. Sometimes the wording that accompanies a donation…
"Tax-deductible donation" is a subset of "donations", at least in the US. I can "donate" (syn: "give") money to anyone. I don't have to do anything special for that, and in theory they should report it on their (personal) taxes as income. If I'm giving it to a registered charity (non-profit), I can deduct it as a donation on my taxes. Maybe that's part of why this piece generated so much discussion: for some, just the word "donation" carries certain connotations that others might not ascribe.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#509Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…
Interestingly, while you can't be donated money in Finland people can certainly and rather freely give gifts to another person. It's even tax-free as long as gifts from one person remain under 4000€ for any consecutive three years. Surely gettings lots of monetary gifts from foreign friends would probably not hold during a tax audit (they'd accuse you of trying to evade taxes unless you could provide a plausible reas…
I just commented above, but isn't this actually what's happening? I mean, isn't giving something of value to someone, and expecting nothing in return, the textbook definition of a "gift"? This feels more and more like something is getting lost in translation.
Re: I Just Hit $100k/year On GitHub Sponsors
#510Reading these makes me sad about the law in my country, Finland. The lowest tier of OP ($7 for no reward) would be illegal here. We have a law called "Money Collection act", which states that to gather donations (i.e. payments with nothing in return), you have to get a permit. This permit costs money, is not given to individuals, and is given only for non-profit activities. So this means that if you see a donation/sp…
What if donors are actually purchasing a spot on the contributions page? It would be like purchasing a classified ad in the paper or a normal internet ad. Their name or specific message would be displayed on the 'donations' page for a set duration. You might have to put some clarifying language on the page as well.
I mean, you can "sell" anything. For $15/mo, I will say "thank you, [your name]" out loud to my cat. For $20/mo, I will give a thumbs-up to the tree in my front yard and think about what a great person you are. Is the government really in a position to tell me that those things aren't "worth" what I'm "charging"?