Post 9zZ6ApgPSqF83ADU0m by trom@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by trom@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #9zYyF92gd5PPcJBJr6 by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:12:04Z
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@disroot: You think that treating people based on their monetary power isn't a slippery slope? Like providing more storage space for those who can pay and such? I don't criticize you, I am asking since we create similar services at tromland.org and we refuse to ever treat people differently based on their purchasing power. Cheers! :)
(DIR) Post #9zYyF9A8BPMbzOfGSW by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:25:47Z
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@trom We do not treat anyone any different. And well since we own our hardware on which we host disroot and since there were people who wanted more storage and wanted to pay for it we made it possible. Hardware for storage ain't free and the basic for each account is pretty decent IMO. We do not recognize any of the people who pay for storage as premium users.
(DIR) Post #9zYySBVglWhv2ExtEu by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:28:06Z
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@trom Also you seem to not host any storage heavy services such as email or nextlcoud so footprint is much lower. Mind that there is no storage restriction on any other services we offer. Cheers
(DIR) Post #9zYypce62fmPr54cZU by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:32:23Z
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@disroot: "With your Disroot account, you get 2GB FREE storage. It is possible to extend your cloud storage from 2GB to 14, 29 or 54GB for the cost of 0.15 euro per GB per month. " - To me this sounds like Google or any cloud storage. I totally understand that it costs money to run these servers, same is what Google says, but I find it a bit unfair to treat people differently based on how much money they have. Why not ask for donations in order to increase the default storage?
(DIR) Post #9zYz39LflUYt2tuFpw by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:34:47Z
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@disroot: We are testing NextCloud and other services and we will be releasing them soon. We will never discriminate based on how much money people have. Maybe you can consider another way to get the funds? We think that all people should be helped equally. Else we will become like a company who treats some customers better depending on how much they pay. I hope you understand my concerns.
(DIR) Post #9zYzNl2jKMm5kEsAk4 by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:38:34Z
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@trom Because doing so is a slippery slope. Storage is expensive when you do pay for each disk, server and U in the datacenter. This would greatly be abused creating situation where resources would get depleted fast and we would not be able to keepup with demand for anyone. ...
(DIR) Post #9zYzQxWhN4OXKWPtwW by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:38:49Z
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@trom Noone is treated differently. For example mail aliases and custom domains are given for donation. But where each GB costs money we cannot just give any amount to people. In fact those who pay for storage are sponsoring more 'free' accounts.
(DIR) Post #9zYzvsBNI1NxjWBRLs by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:44:45Z
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@disroot: What if you provide 2GB for free for everyone, and ask for donations to increase it for everyone? Wikipedia or Archive.org never ask me to trade money to them in return for better services. And they are amazing. It showcase that you can scale up. Imagine if Archive.org will ask for money in return for more storage? That would definitely be a slippery slope transforming them overtime.
(DIR) Post #9zZ094KXR4kzAolJCa by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:46:55Z
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@disroot: "@trom Noone is treated differently. For example mail aliases and custom domains are given for donation. " It means, if I donate money to you, you give me an alias or more storage space. If I do not, you don't. Imagine I do not have the money but I want an alias or more storage space. I can't get that from you. So, I'd say, you are treating people with money better than those without. And I am sorry again, I do not want to sound like I'm attacking what you do. 'm curious
(DIR) Post #9zZ0EuIxcgaZokoA08 by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:48:12Z
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@trom tbh I dont. I dont know what do you mean by discriminated and treated differently. Noone is priviledged becasue of the fact they pay for extra storage.We provide what we can in the resources we can afford. Noone is exluded to use our services. We could as well not have extra storage at all. This extra storage pays the bills for servers, spare disks, backup and creates funds for increase of the storage in near future. ....
(DIR) Post #9zZ0JH8Mge8XmMw1bs by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:48:53Z
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@trom I hope you will find better way to fund your project but I can tell you when you run it on your own hardware, things arent that easy. For example your entire server yo use is not good enough for nextlcoud db we use. Anyway, good luck with your project. The more choice people have the better.
(DIR) Post #9zZ0kpAYFikX9l5t9E by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:53:45Z
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@disroot: In this society if you have money you get more of this, and more of that. Better of this, and better of that. I think this is very unfair and there are no reasons to keep on doing this. Everyone should be treated equally. As long as you provide more and better for those who can give you money, regardless of the reasons, then you are treating them better than the ones who don't give you money. As simple as that. Maybe you will rethink the way you manage Disroot.
(DIR) Post #9zZ0wS3O1OQKwKHqa0 by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:55:59Z
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@trom If you have no money you just simply create extra account. Those things are improvements but do not hinder the use of the services at all. It's not all that easy. First of all all those request require manual work of admins which means we will be just processing those and wont have time for anything else. Additionally aliases also are very big issue when it comes to abuse (spammers, scammers etc), which also impacts all people as your server will be overrun by those. ....
(DIR) Post #9zZ11vhrCVDyM0pSE4 by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T21:56:29Z
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@disroot: And don't get me wrong, you are doing a fantastic job there. We use some of your services too. But I have seen enough of such "premium" accounts type of approaches and they do not seem to evolve very honestly over time. Also, maybe I care too much about poor people and I don't want to see them being treated as second class citizens just because they can't afford this or that. Cheers!
(DIR) Post #9zZ157vAF9W76cZsSO by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T21:56:37Z
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@trom Storage also as I mentioned before isn't cheap (we had to throw 4K euros from our own pocket to increase the storage two years ago and now we will need to throw twice as much at least, thanks to those people who pay for storage I dont need to take loan in the bank). It's all not so easy when you are faced with daily issues at scale. I fail to see how we discriminate people by offering extra services as reward for donation or extra storage (which costs real money)
(DIR) Post #9zZ1VaV0c4eHGhxf16 by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:02:16Z
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@trom Its untrue. As much as I would like to I am myself earning minimum wage and cant afford endless steam of money to spend of hardware for storage. People have been requesting for example 1TB at once which we denied because that would deplete resources too much. Another fact is that each extra storage you decide to pay for includes the 2GB you got for free which means you pay more so that people without money could get accounts. .....
(DIR) Post #9zZ1aZi8yFl2GvU0tE by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:03:00Z
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@trom Thanks to those rewards we are actually getting money so we can provide free services to those who cannot afford. WIthout it, we wouldnt be where we are now and thus certainly not provide any services to anyone, poor or rich.
(DIR) Post #9zZ27P1JjvFwfh6Ynw by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:09:03Z
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@disroot: I understand that because of those trades with some users, you are able to provide more free accounts, but I cannot see this as scaling up in an honest manner. It is the slope that pretty much everyone slips on. Even Google promised to be nice towards its users in 2004. Or Facebook. Or some open source projects like Jitsi Meet and their instance that is now injecting ads. As long as you ask something in return for your services, you will de-balance yourself.
(DIR) Post #9zZ2G32EqiTV5lerei by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:10:38Z
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@disroot: I think the people from FramaSoft were always providing trade-free services. Meaning, they didn't ask anything in return for whatever they provide. So maybe it is possible if you ask for more support. You seem to have a lot of people who like your services. Maybe asking for more donations you can scale up and also keep your services like FramaSoft or Archive.org, trade-free.
(DIR) Post #9zZ2X5mrs1EMYBb0wi by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:13:53Z
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@trom I dont agree. It actually depends what your model is and what you want to achieve. Jitsi has been bought but I think slack (dont rememebr) so no wonder they want to sqeeze out some extra money and I dont think this is a fault of Jitsi devs. Additionally thier service has been used and abused for free and they had to come up wiht some revenue stream to keep up. Stuff at scale starts costing quite a lot. Whether adding ads is good or not its not me to judge.
(DIR) Post #9zZ2kvtxQCi5wdVn7I by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:16:13Z
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@trom And google is a for profit company so totally different ideas behind it. We arent profit driven. We are registered non-profit foundation. Our aim isnt to generat profit and take over the world so our model is not set to debalance anything. We had hard times getting donations and seemed like giving osmething as a reward (custom domain, aliases) seemed to stimulate that. As for storage, yes its costly and it costs real money we cant just give it for free (someone donated 1 euro for 1TB?)
(DIR) Post #9zZ31EZhlKEEUaoOPY by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:19:20Z
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@trom And at the end framasoft (who werent providing more then free account swhich were even smaller then what we give) are not closing most of the services. Archive.org has quite some corporate backing and I believe they do not run their own hardware infra and they are at much bigger scale. I still fail to see your point though. Taking framasoft as example. You think we should just not give aliases or domains or storage and that would be good or better?
(DIR) Post #9zZ3OhUiPFlyqSfS8e by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:23:31Z
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@disroot: Instead of Jitsi selling out, they could rely on something like https://framatalk.org/accueil/en/ where random instances are used instead of just one. Multiple servers, decentralization at its best. Same for Nextcloud instance, why not merge more of these instances into a similar thing? So people don't abuse yours....as long as a piece of software asks something from the users (trade), they will go down the hill and become a "google". That's what I observed.
(DIR) Post #9zZ3gLulNWe183Ghcm by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:26:45Z
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@trom Cant talk for jitsi cause I have no idea what their situation is. But, I can tell you that creating code cost smoney too. Jitsi has been in different hands for last years and its not only jitsi team that probably pulls strings. Also in the beginning of the lockdown they really wanted to help poeple get out of zoom and thus beefed up their instance and, quite frankly for a time it was the only instance that could match zoom in performance. ....
(DIR) Post #9zZ41y7WWd3XhfXoYK by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:30:38Z
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@disroot: IDK how notforprofits work nowadays since I've seen many making profits. But archive.org is one of such cases that seems very honest and they do have their own hardware and deal with all that and are mostly backed by people like you and me https://archive.org/donate/.
(DIR) Post #9zZ4TjefttA6wrI5ey by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:35:39Z
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@trom Sure but you compare no.1 website active for decades with small non-profit. It's easy to say when you can pay for all the petabytes of storage and pay 150 staff members. We are at the stage where we can pay volounteer fees of 140 euro a month to two people who each work pretty much full time on disroot while maintaining dayjob, family etc. This is uncomparable IMO to webiste that pretty much archives the internet.
(DIR) Post #9zZ4XktVEdyTwx8wqG by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:36:23Z
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@disroot: My point is this: when you ask something in return for what you do, it is a slippery slope. If you provide a service to people, and say "for 20 bucks I give you more storage space", regardless of your motive, you will, in time, become more incentivized to provide such services at a cost, rather than provide them for free, since you rely on these paid services to run your organization. It is a very bad string attached to your umbilical cord. Maybe you won't, but'm skeptic
(DIR) Post #9zZ4bzFtmZZ5eHdX7o by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:36:30Z
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@trom I think we are pretty transparent and honest about our finances too. Non-profit means that all revenue needs to be invested back to the nonprofit.
(DIR) Post #9zZ4p77Bs8GPmzp4Yy by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:39:30Z
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@disroot: I agree. TROM is doing volunteer work for 10 years now. Books, documentaries, software, etc.. All trade-free, meaning we ask nothing in return. First years without any support, then around 1k E a month, now we run out of money in 3 months. It really sucks. That being said, despite this, I still think is better to treat everyone equally regardless, and such tactics with "give me money and I'll give you more", are bound to repeat the same mistakes all companies do.
(DIR) Post #9zZ4to5844WQCs62Fc by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:39:49Z
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@trom How so?It is not the only factor and we are not profit driven. This is not free vs premium account situation. We sell extra storage because storage costs money. I would be very much glad to sit on a server with 200GB SSD but thats not the case. I also dont want to be forced to close down the server because the amount of storage does not add up wht amount of donations comming in. I think we are creating a healthy balance between donations and paid storage. We need some safety net.
(DIR) Post #9zZ5AdYcRmqMUMuoWO by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:43:11Z
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@trom yeah I'm very happy with your aproach and I wish I would have 1K donations with such low costs you have. But I still dont agree with you. Our main goal is not selling extra stuff. In fact in the beginning we did not want to sell extra storage. But because ton of people wanted it we decided to invest in equipment and make it happen. Thankfully that investment did pay back but now we are at the stage where we will need to invest probably twice as much (10k or so)
(DIR) Post #9zZ5U1siEd7jQlYpii by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:46:56Z
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@disroot: I feel like your motivation is in the right place and you seem honest, but it is a premium vs free situation. Or call it paid vs free. I hope you will keep on being honest, and then my only critique would be that you treat (indirectly) those without money or little off, in a different way than you treat people with money. It is an unfortunate situation, but it is what it is.
(DIR) Post #9zZ5XoJOd1VUVHqRnc by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:47:00Z
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@trom Again the extra stuff is not hindering the use of services for others. Its not like "pay extra" and get access to cloud or email. Anyone can make account and anyone can use them. For example I do not use extra storage on email, I just clean it up every year and I think 1GB is plenty. If I want, I can always archive off-site. I do use few extra gigs of cloud storage tough but for years I was ok with the base....
(DIR) Post #9zZ5mNptLb2yjYzeJk by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:50:07Z
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@disroot: Our costs are not that low at all actually. We have many projects and 1 full time "paid volunteer". Anyways, lets see how Disroot will evolve. Would you like to come to our TROMcast https://www.tromsite.com/videos/#cast so we can discuss these ideas live and on lenght? We had a similar one here https://www.tromsite.com/videos/#fvp_242,0s
(DIR) Post #9zZ5uWXEt7Bm1x9Nr6 by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:50:40Z
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@trom I fail to see that tbh. We are talking here about extra storage for all (plese give me petabytes of storage and I will do it) or for none (treat everyone equally). I hope your project will find a way to pay for all the storage needed when you open nextlcoud instance and get popular without paying at amazon or other thirdp party storage provider for free in abundance to anyone. When I had to pay 4000 euros from my own savings I knew I cannot be doing it yearly basis.
(DIR) Post #9zZ61ZfrcCkHnFXwTA by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:51:08Z
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@trom :) Sure would be nice. This character limit is annoying.
(DIR) Post #9zZ6ApgPSqF83ADU0m by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:52:29Z
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@disroot: Awesome! How can I contact you more directly to schedule a date and hour?
(DIR) Post #9zZ6GMoPibRyFJbDbk by disroot@social.weho.st
2020-09-26T22:52:55Z
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@trom info@disroot.org
(DIR) Post #9zZ6Wj5UfNc5xvOB0a by trom@mastodon.social
2020-09-26T22:58:37Z
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@disroot: Perfect! Will do.