also the August 2024 financial update, but I’m trying not to bury the lede. Hi everyone, We have come to the decision to cease operations of cohost and anti software software club due to lack of funding and burnout. As of today, none of us are being paid for our labor1; all of our money in the bank, and any money coming in from people who buy our merch or don’t cancel cohost plus, is going towards servers and operations — paying the bills so we can turn the lights off with as little disruption as possible. cohost will become read-only on Tuesday, October 1st. At this time, we will make best-effort attempts to keep the servers online through the end of 2024. Development focus has immediately shifted to data export. We have offered minimal data export for GDPR compliance for a while now, but this is a barebones system that doesn’t meet our quality standards. We will be improving this system over the next few weeks and will issue full data exports for all users when the site goes read-only. We will continue to offer downloads of your data export through the end of the read-only period. When the read-only period concludes, we will delete all of your data from our servers without a backup. Even now we want to reiterate that we think “data brokerage” and other common practices of the software industry are inimical to who we are as people, and we would never consider selling your data to others or asserting any rights to stuff you posted under any circumstance. Majority control of the cohost source code will be transferred to the person who funded the majority of our operations, as per the terms of the funding documents we signed with them; Colin and I will retain small stakes so we have some input on what happens to it, at their request. ---------------------------------------- So, what happened? If you’ve read our financial updates, you know that we have never been profitable. This isn’t surprising, even with a team of four; social media is a notoriously unprofitable industry. We had planned to bring in new revenue with eggbux (our tipping and subscription product) but policy changes from Stripe forced us to cancel earlier this year. Since then, we’ve struggled to fill the revenue and morale gap. Colin and I have been doing this for five years, Aidan for three, Kara for nearly two. We’ve been at or over capacity on moderation, engineering, and general operations nearly this entire time. We have all been on-call 24/7/365 since we launched two and a half years ago. The day-to-day needs of just running the site meant developing alternative funding options wasn’t possible. MAU and MRR are down across the year. We’ve managed to build a social media platform that many of our users love, but we just don’t have enough users and we don’t have the resources to safely scale up. It’s important to know when to call it quits. We’re grateful for all the incredible things y’all have created on cohost. We’re grateful for eggbug. We’re grateful that we were able to try and show a better path for social media, even if it didn’t work out exactly as we would have liked. We’re going to do our best to keep things online through the end of the year with the money we have, but we might need additional funding to keep things up until then. If you would be able to contribute funds if necessary, please e-mail us at [email protected] [[email protected]]. Thank you all for having used cohost. We’ll see you around. :eggbug: ~ jae (and colin, and aidan, and kara) ---------------------------------------- TIMELINE * Immediately: self-service account deletions are available in the settings page [https://cohost.org/rc/user/settings]. account sign-up and activation is no longer available. Please note that if you delete your account before receiving a data export, you will not receive one; there won’t be any data left for us to export. * October 1, 2024: cohost will become read-only. all cohost plus subscriptions will be cancelled. account deletions will remain available. * starting October 1, 2024: we will begin processing data exports for all users. we expect this process to take some time. once your export is ready, you will receive an e-mail with a link to download it. data export downloads will remain available until the servers shut down on December 31. * December 31, 2024: cohost will go fully offline. all user data will be deleted on our way out the door. * January 1, 2025: we will set cohost.org [http://cohost.org] to redirect to the wayback machine2 to prevent link rot. this is something we will be paying for out of pocket since ASSC will no longer be an operating concern, but it’s max $100 per year total so it’s fine. FAQ this space intentionally left blank while we wait for people to frequently ask questions ---------------------------------------- AUGUST 2024 FINANCIAL UPDATE CategoryAs of August 31As of July 31% ChangeExpenses$41,605$41,0521.35%Income$16,307$28,405-42.59%Net income-$25,297-$12,647-100.03%Active subscribers3,0463,128-2.62%MRR$19,477$20,015-2.69%Subscriber churn rate3.18%3.07%3.58%Revenue per subscriber$6.39$6.40-0.16%MAU16,84618,612-9.49%MAU → Subscriber conversion rate18%16.8%7.14%Artist Alley listing weeks sold7389-17.98% Not great! ---------------------------------------- 1. on that note, we’re looking for new jobs. we’ll each be posting about that bit individually. 2. speaking of which, if you’re with archive team please reach out. we’d like to help make sure there’s a recent archive of all public posts but don’t know who to talk to.
    • @[email protected]English
      17•2 months ago

      Was reading that and had the most insane sense of deja vu, then noticed it was posted a year ago and went ‘oh, okay, I have seen this before!’.

      Surprised they lasted a whole year longer.

    • celeste
      9•2 months ago

      Thanks for linking to that! Interesting. I refreshed their page and they have more to say now that it’s happened.

  • missingno
    23•2 months ago

    Damn. Hadn’t actually posted there much but I did lurk quite a bit.

    Just feels like every attempt at alternative social media is dying as the internet shrinks to a few corporate websites that control everything.

    • cabbageEnglish
      17•2 months ago

      I think alternative social media needs to be decentralized. There’s just no other way it can be sustainable. Cohost was centralized - of course it couldn’t stand a chance. Never mind all the other issues, which are obviously equally important.

      For me, the fact that we are having this conversation on the social web is solid evidence pointing in the opposite direction of your concerns. I counted contributors from eight different websites and at least three different software platforms only in this comment section of twelve comments.

      Alternative social media platforms have never looked so healthy!

      • missingno
        7•2 months ago

        I love everything that Fedi stands for, I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t.

        But it’s hard to shake the feeling that I’m mostly posting out into the void. I’m not optimistic about Fedi’s future, I think at this rate Bluesky is going to win even though they’re clearly only paying lip service to federation. Maybe if they can demonstrate that their federation works I’d consider trying a third party server, but it’s clearly not ready yet, and leaves a sour taste in my mouth as yet another corporate thing pretending not to be.

        Ever since I swore off Reddit after the API fiasco, and ever since I left the one Discord server where I used to feel like I fit in, it’s felt harder and harder to find alternative places where I can talk about my most niche interests, because nowhere else is big enough for it to be likely I’ll find anyone else who also wants to talk about those same things.

        I don’t think Fedi will ever be that for me. The one thing I can say for Cohost is that at the rate it was going, I was able to find a lot more posts relating to my hobbies and fandoms, and I kinda regret that I didn’t post more and lurk less.

        It just sucks to feel like there’s nowhere else on today’s dying internet to go that will suit my needs.

        • cabbage
          8•2 months ago

          I’m amazed at how fast this place has grown since the first time I saw a Lemmy instance (way before Reddit API drama), or since the first time I snooked around Mastodon (before Twitter exodus) for that matter. So I guess I’m inherently optimistic by the fact that where newer users might see little activity as a bad sign, I see a little activity as a huge improvement on what the status quo was not so long ago.

          On a technical side, open source projects also tend not to benefit from growing too fast. It seems to me Fediverse platforms currently have a healthy activity level for the stage of completion they are in. Lemmy certainly grew faster than it could handle for a while, and arguably Mastodon suffered from the same.

          The main reason I’m hopeful about the social web is, however, that it makes no sense any more to create a new platform that does not support it. No matter what kind of social networking site you’re making, proprietary or open, you’re going to want to make it ActivityPub enabled, simply because it gives you a user base right off the bat.

          And furthermore, it encourages the development of new platforms, precisely because you don’t need to establish yourself with a whole bunch of users. According to fedidb my platform of choice, PieFed, has 124 active users right now. It would not have been a very interesting corner of the old web.

          I don’t think the established user base here is going anywere, and I think future developments will feed into the ecosystem. So I’m pretty hopeful. But it is going to take time before all sorts of niche communities have made themselves a federated home.

          Bluesky and Threads will fight it out over microblogging, while Mastodon will stick around as a smaller less corporate alternative. A year from now people on both platforms can probably follow my Mastodon handle anyway, so I don’t really care all that much.

          • @[email protected]English
            4•2 months ago

            The only problem of excessive optimism is that you might end up alone in a hill which is not worth fighting for.

            As a whole, ActivityPub servers have been losing users since its peak in 2022. We were given all the opportunity in the world to build on that momentum with the Reddit fiasco, but were absolutely afraid to grow. Until today, the discourse reeks of elitism with the “I don’t redditors here”.

            Meanwhile, Bluesky has focused on building a product that can be used by the masses, without acting pretentious about who they wanted to be there. They were already getting a.sunstantial crowd from Mastodon, now they are taking the Brazilians we well.

            The momentum is not in our favor, and our reactionary, anti-growth culture is not helping.

            • Blaze (he/him)English
              4•2 months ago

              I’m mostly going to talk about Lemmy here as you mention the Reddit fiasco.

              but were absolutely afraid to grow

              We were not afraid to grow, the instances did not even exist when Reddit disabled the API. LW, lemm.ee, sh.itjust.works were all created around the time of the Reddit announcement.

              Until today, the discourse reeks of elitism with the “I don’t redditors here”

              New joiners getting welcome by people on Lemmy

              Which examples do you have of what you stated above?

              Bluesky has focused on building a product that can be used by the masses

              BlueSky got 8 millions from investors, expecting Lemmy, Mbin or Piefed so have the same level of development is unrealistic: https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/05/bluesky-announces-its-8m-seed-round-first-paid-service-custom-domains/

              • @[email protected]English
                0•2 months ago

                For every “welcome” post, you can find 10 other comments that amount to “I left Reddit because their users are toxic/suck/stupid”.

                One of the biggest complaints about the Reddit mirrors is “if I wanted to see Reddit content, I’d go to Reddit”.

                Go check the posts about Fediverser, see how many people are opposed to it on the grounds of “I don’t want to bring more people here”.

                BlueSky got 8 millions from investors, expecting Lemmy, Mbin or Piefed so have the same level of development is unrealistic:

                So now you understand why it matters to value the work of developers?

                • Blaze (he/him)English
                  3•2 months ago

                  For every “welcome” post, you can find 10 other comments that amount to “I left Reddit because their users are toxic/suck/stupid”.

                  I provided examples, you did not, but okay.

                  One of the biggest complaints about the Reddit mirrors is “if I wanted to see Reddit content, I’d go to Reddit”.

                  The biggest complaints about mirrors were that they were posted by bots which

                  • do not filter content, so they repost the same karma farming posts than the ones from Reddit
                  • never answer back (obviously), which makes no sense for communities where people are sharing experiences

                  Go check the posts about Fediverser, see how many people are opposed to it on the grounds of “I don’t want to bring more people here”.

                  I had a look at the most recent one, most of its discussion derailed about the correct usage of downvotes: https://lemmy.world/post/18249058

                  I had a look at another one (https://aussie.zone/post/12244073 ), it just seemed like the admins didn’t want to have to manage additional software. They are still struggling with federation (https://aussie.zone/post/13429731 ), so that’s probably on their priority

                  Older posts from a year ago aren’t probably reflective on how people feel about the topic today, a lot of the people left and joined in the meantime

                  So now you understand why it matters to value the work of developers?

                  I never denied that having massive financial investment would improve software.

                  What I said is that it is unrealistic to expect the Lemmy userbase to raise the same amount than investors looking for the next Twitter (and I stand by that point).

                  Thinking about it, it’s interesting that no other company tried to create a new Reddit, in the same way BlueSky did for Twitter. Probably because forums are less profitable than microblogging.

            • RileyOPEnglish
              4•2 months ago

              Fedi’s daily active users actually went up for the last two months after hitting a low of just under 1,000,000. That’s a lot of people, and on a platform that likely has the ability to carry on like a cockroach in a nuclear winter.

            • drone509
              0•2 months ago

              @rglullis @cabbage I feel like it’s only a matter of time until they have their own Elon Musk moment. Then their users will have to make some tough choices again.

      • Blaze (he/him)English
        4•2 months ago

        For me, the fact that we are having this conversation on the social web is a evidence pointing in the opposite direction of your concerns. I counted contributors from eight different websites and at least three different software platforms only in this comment section of twelve comments.

        Alternative social media platforms have never looked so healthy!

        Very true!

    • maegul (he/they)English
      6•2 months ago

      Just feels like every attempt at alternative social media is dying as the internet shrinks to a few corporate websites that control everything.

      Yea … it’s sort of a lens for me as I view/critique the actions and decisions of people building alt-social … this stuff is hard and fragile but also important … so not fucking around with it kinda matters (to me at least).

      The hate toward BlueSky from mastodon/AP people, for example, is misguided I think. The, IMO, general lack of concern for inter-platform interop across the fediverse bothers me too, where I ask whether a platform is being a good “fediverse citizen”. And some of the “cultural purity through vigilance” culture out of the mastodon/microblogging crowd is, IMO, short sighted.

      A common thread being a readiness for negative behaviour and effects rather than building and supporting.

      • drone509
        4•2 months ago

        @maegul @missingno
        I don’t hate Bluesky, but I am pretty suspicious. I was a pretty avid user of Facebook messenger when it was using XMPP, through pidgin and other clients. They rugpulled me and my friends, when it became more profitable to keep it in their walled garden. Bluesky seems like it could easily head the same direction.

        • maegul (he/they)English
          2•2 months ago

          Suspicion is totally fair re BlueSky IMO. The system they’ve design seems to me (and others AFAICT) to have the potential to include interconnected components or sections with various degrees of independence.

          The elephant in the room, which I point out on BlueSky whenever I can, is that no one seems to really be trying to build the hard parts of that out. Which is a shame because it could be interesting.

          EG, there’s a chance that a hybridised system running both BlueSky’s protocol and the fediverse’s could be viable and quite useful. Add to that the integration with some E2EE, and it finally feels like an actual attempt at building something new for the modern internet.

          Fortunately there is some noise around these ideas, so hopefully their system can outlast their finances. But yea, a rug pull is definitely not out of the question.

  • maegul (he/they)English
    9•2 months ago

    Yea the writing had been on the wall for a while AFAIU. I don’t know what lessons are to be gleaned from its story, but I’d bet at a basic level it’s that building new social media spaces is not easy. An old school forum is likely fine. But a whole platform with all of the expectations and features people have today, hard if not impossible.

  • @[email protected]English
    -5•2 months ago

    Wait, I thought that running a social media server costs only a few cents per user? The Lemmy crowd told me so!

    • RileyOPEnglish
      26•2 months ago

      server costs were not the biggest reason, it was down to salary costs

      • @[email protected]English
        -4•2 months ago

        I was being sarcastic. Last week there was a big thread here were most admins people were equating “support the Fediverse” with “pay for the costs of hardware”.