Lumberjacked

joined 10 months ago
[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 1 points 21 hours ago

For me it sunk in that we really need both. Insurance against the inability to work due to just getting old and retirement to allow for enjoyment and experience a life beyond the grind.

Seems reasonable.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago

That’s cool.

 

It’s a subtle difference but I always heard it presented like it was a federal retirement account but is actually insurance for getting old.

Wikipedia: Social Security (USA)

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

I agree. AI could be good for first line of defense specifically for sorting our traumatizing gore and the like.

For normal moderation I think it’s only useful in the same way as spell check. Second set or eyes but human makes the final call.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

Yes I think so. If they had an ad free versions I’d pay for it.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What are they looking at doing for revenue?

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

Yeah but Valve is centralized ownership still. One guy has majority and that makes a difference. A coop could be customer led from get go. 51% customers 49% employees or something like that.

The point being if you structure it as for profit you can charge for things and build a good product. You can make rules that says 100% of the profits have to be redistributed and no one can change that. It’s how many farm co-ops work.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago (10 children)

You could do a for profit without investors. Any profit goes back to employees and paying users. Make it the operating agreement from the get go and no one could come in.

Non profit in many places means you can’t sell a service. So you rely on donations. Which means you’re constantly asking for donations.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 3 points 6 days ago

That’s hard. I like an algorithm I can control. Maybe could do ads in search only. I don’t know. Kind of hate ads.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Think beyond VC backed companies. Those get tons of attention because they need it.

Investors = bad. I whole heartedly agree.

For profit doesn’t have to be bad. What if it were a worker/user co-op. Have a free product and have a paid product. If you pay for the product you get a (just one) vote. If you work for the company you get a vote. Users won’t vote for maximizing profit. But the profit means you don’t have to beg for donations.

Craigslist would be another example. For profit but no major investors so doesn’t have to prioritize profits.

 

I use Bluesky and Mastodon. Mastodon better hits where I want the fediverse to go but Bluesky is so much easier to use. Signup, UI, flagship app, feeds, and content is just so much less of a headache. But it feels like it's a matter of time before it's enshittified.

I was thinking about how much I hate big tech but there's a lot of small and mid-size companies that I have neutral to positive views on. Canonical, Mozilla, 37 Signals, Odoo are the ones that come to mind. All of those have a revenue model but also actively support open source initiatives and developers. None are perfect but better than "big tech" and get more done than just donation based development.

It feels like there needs to be some for-profit companies (without ads and maintaining privacy) that can help support the development around ActivityPub and maintain apps and servers that are easier to onboard and easier to use. Does this exist?

What could be some non-evil revenue models? I pay $20/month for a blogging platform for my business website. Maybe have a service to host AP servers for businesses or journalists? Personal private encrypted cloud services like photo backups that are integrated with AP?

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

Profit. Revenue minus expenses. There are some things you wouldn’t expect, like inventory doesn't count as an expense until you sell them. So frequently profit is actually higher than money in the bank and a lot higher than what owners get paid.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

Citizens United was about corporations getting rights of people, not them paying taxes as people. I’m suggesting they should because individual tax rate is higher than corporate.

[–] Lumberjacked@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

Looking for instances but I appreciate the recommendations.

Worst case is I just follow a lot of positive communities.

 

Does anyone know of any instances on Lemmy or Mastadon that focus only on positive news?

I’m trying to reduce social media usage in general but when I do use it I would prefer to be able to explore uplifting things only.

I know I can block negative stuff but I also like going an exploring communities I’m not interested in subscribing. It would be great to have a local feed that’s better for mental health.

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