Re:The case for the decentralization of online forums
by karmakurtisaani on Saturday June 10, 2023 @04:47PM
(#36274930)
You have a premise that the web site has to cost a lot of money. I keep wondering if Reddit-like aggregator could be run such that
* The founders take minimal amount of VC money to get things running
* There is no self-hosting of anything unnecessary
* Everything is hosted on-premise (not sure if this would cut costs in the long run)
* Serve the users the least amount of ads to make it worthwhile
So basically run a decent service that you can sustain for decades. You won't become an IPO billionaire, but maybe get a humble couple of millions.
Perhaps it can't be done, and enshittification is the only way. In that case, I don't see any other way than decentralisation run by donations to get us something decent.
* The founders take minimal amount of VC money to get things running
* There is no self-hosting of anything unnecessary
* Everything is hosted on-premise (not sure if this would cut costs in the long run)
* Serve the users the least amount of ads to make it worthwhile
So basically run a decent service that you can sustain for decades. You won't become an IPO billionaire, but maybe get a humble couple of millions.
Perhaps it can't be done, and enshittification is the only way. In that case, I don't see any other way than decentralisation run by donations to get us something decent.