the August 2023 Beehaw financial update
the August 2023 Beehaw financial update
obligatory preface: we're 100%-user funded and everything you donate to us specifically goes to the website, or any outside labor we pay to do something for us.
overall expenses this month: $523.79
as expected, a full month of running on last month's setup has come in pretty high. luckily, we expect downsizing to begin this month (and we have a pretty good idea of what we're going to do) so this will be our last month of costs at this scale. our initial estimation is that we can halve or better what we're paying now on a monthly basis.
$428.73 for Digital Ocean hosting, which can be further subdivided into
- $336.00 for hosting the site itself
- $67.20 for backups
- $25.53 for site snapshots
$28.87 for Hive, an internal chat platform we've set up (also being hosted on Digital Ocean)
- $24.07 for hosting Hive
- $4.80 for backups
~$39.16 for email functionality, which can be further subdivided into
- $35/mo for Mailgun (handles outbound emails, so approval/denial/notifications emails; also lets us not get marked as spam)
- ~$4.16/mo ($50/yr, already paid in full) for Fastmail (handles all inbound emails)
$22.87 for BackBlaze (redundant backup system that's standalone from Digital Ocean)
overall contributions this month: $1,310.90
support still more than covers our expenses, and particularly with our upcoming downsizing we don't believe this will be a problem. breakdown is:
- 100 monthly contributions, totaling $624.95
- 2 yearly contributions, totaling $67.10
- 36 one-time donations, totaling $618.85
between monthly and yearly contributions we are still sustainable overall—but now that the Reddit bump has ebbed most of our savings will come in the form of lowering costs and not "sheer amount of money being thrown our way."
total end of month balance: $4,347.79
expense runway, assuming no further donations
- assuming expenses like ours this month: we have about 8 months and one week of runway
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A thought I’ve had for a little bit now is what is making sure Beehaw isn’t sold off? I have no doubt in the current intentions of the admins, but as Beehaw grows it can become very valuable for data companies. If this wonderful community thrives, there will be eventually be people and companies making offers to buy everything we’ve built. Is there any plan to ensure Beehaw doesn’t sell out? I’ve been burned before, and I want to ensure that if I’m going to contribute financially that I won’t lose Beehaw.
I mean, that's a question of trust. There's nothing I can do other than promise that I or any of the admins would never sell off Beehaw.
That said, if it reassures you, our disregard for "growth for the sake of growth" should push away any kind of company seeking money. It'd be much more lucrative to go for a big instance like lemmy.world.
How could we do more than ask for trust?
I recommend turning Beehaw into a cooperative where to be a member one has to contribute monthly financially. I understand this is no easy task, and am only sharing my best idea. I really like this place.
I think in principle it sounds like a good idea. However, I'd caution against overlooking the administrative overheads that a formal governance structure would impose.
A cooperative would need oversight, accounting, legal and a ton of other instruments or functions to operate. Currently the hosting costs look like they're about $500 a month, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that a formal organization that governs the day-to-day operation of beehaw can have overheads that easily go up to 10x or more over the hosting costs.
Right now, in my mind, beehaw is essentially a bunch of cool dudettes/dudes that are hosting a BBQ party in their backyard. They only have one rule, you are welcome as long as you're nice to everyone. You can also choose to help chip-in for pizza and beer if you like, that will be very welcome. Otherwise, the cost of hosting this party comes out of their own pockets.
Now we have some generous folks who are happy to chip in a fiver or tenner here and there to keep the party going, that's great. However, some attendees are now starting to get a little uncomfortable since the party is growing and the F&B pot is healthy. What if the hosts were to spoil the party by selling the rights to it? What if they start monetizing the party through other nefarious means, or begin to compromise on their "be nice" principle and let everyone in?
Perhaps we will need to elect a bunch of hall monitors to make sure this doesn't happen. And let's get in an accountant or two to make sure the F&B money is actually used to buy pizza and beer. In fact, let's get a couple of lawyers to come in and make sure everything's above board. Oh wait, since legality is now a concern, we better look into insuring ourselves against litigation risks. In the process of doing all these, let's also have a group of elders to meet once a year and certify that the party is indeed running against what the hosts promised it would be.
But it all started only because a small bunch of cool people decided to have a free party in their backyard, and all they wanted was for people to be nice to one another.
The thing is, there's a thousand other backyard parties out there and anyone unhappy with the way this party is organized is very, very, very free to go to other parties. In fact, they are actively encouraged to. That's the whole point of these parties in the first place, go to one that you'd enjoy and have fun in.
Not sure if I'm rambling or making any sense. But to be honest, I wouldn't blame the admins if this gradual enshittification is not what they signed up for.
It's certainly an area that has been thrown around and I can certainly see the benefits. I, personally speaking, worry though that democratic models at such an early stage can be abused. I also worry about money being a barrier for entry as that could keep out good people that simply don't have the means - I don't know that I could spend a membership fee as a student with no job because of all this volunteering work..
I think a solution where the community gets some kind of codified constitution is a good one, but it requires both a knowledge of organizational law and a understanding of what makes the community great. If things get nailed down too soon, or get something wrong, it could really mess BeeHaw up. Maybe it's a good long term goal.
I do wish people would not use start-up terminology like 'runway' - it's a aviation metaphor, and implies an eventual 'take off' which is usually the point at which a start-up goes public or is sold by the capital investment firm to take their sky-high profits.
Speaking of that instance... has there been any progress on federating with them again?
I was surprised to see little talk about Donald's Jan6th charges on my feed, but after flipping accounts I realised most of the chatter was going on over there.
I don't particularly mind if I need a dedicated LW account... but it would be nice to be able to keep my posts consolidated under this one.
I actually have a different account for each of several popular instances (including some kbin and even Mastodon instances), in large part because I want to see how the different communities grow organically in environments where different admins/mods might have different approaches to federation with other instances, modding, enabling/disabling downvotes, requirements for creating a new account, communities, rules/norms, etc.
So far I spend most of my time on Beehaw with my Beehaw account, but I am still somewhat active on a few others. If this place ends up growing to the point where it needs to implement more formal administrative overhead of things like a constitution/charter and bylaws defining how admins, mods, and users are to interact and define the future of the instance, and the admins are able to pull that off, this will probably end up becoming my main home on the fediverse.
I realize we're wildly off topic here, but how much is there really to discuss about the Aug. 1 indictments? You want 45 pages of factual details? Read the indictment.
It's a criminal proceeding. I guess one is entitled to opinions, but the merits (or lack thereof) of a criminal case reside in the purview of attorneys. General IANAL discussion is pissing into the wind, so I'm not lamenting a lack of masturbatory discussion on Beehaw.
General IANAL discussion is pissing into the wind, so I’m not lamenting a lack of masturbatory discussion on Beehaw.
What the hell, that's weirdly graphic?
Maybe an inside reference from my college newsroom doesn't land the same way with a general audience. Every opinion editor started their term with a "masturbatory" plea for contributions as though no one would submit columns without such an entreaty.
Unfortunately, the moderation and federation tools have received no attention at all. We've only noticed more and more problems...
I would really like to say yes but we're kinda stuck in this situation, especially considering that .world is now 10x the size of Beehaw.. We can't take this moderation load while the tools are all broken and missing.
That's a pity, but also very understandable.
Thank you for taking the time to reply ❤️
Our 'Northern Star' (or guiding principle) has been, for over two years, 'be(e) nice'. This is the ONLY objective that we have.
That doesn't answer the question...
I think they tried. It's just a hard question to answer. How would you guarantee someone something like that?
There's legal framework for making that more sure, but that's a lot to ask I agree there's no good answer to that question. You never know, a lot of people get blinded by money even if you'd never expect it from them. Just the way the world works you don't know yourself even until the temptation is presented.
Clearly that's not the goal and I do trust that they are more committed to their vision and morals than that, but it's not something you can ever rule out entirely.
The issue when we bring in legality is the need for formal processes, oversight, validation, audit, blah blah blah and those come with (very) expensive administrative overheads. You quickly realize you need to have bookkeepers, legal counsel on retainer, a formal Board, charters, general meetings, all of which are likely to cost far (many times) more than just hosting costs.
I am not a lawyer, but I can quickly see overheads like these spiraling way out of control. Happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable than I am.
How would you guarantee someone something like that?
Incorporate, NFPO, most likely 501(c)(7).
Besides that, I don't think they tried. "Do no evil" isn't reassuring in the slightest, especially to those of us who remember Reddit before Advance and Tencent bought in. This is when Reddit was literally user powered (image relevant). We bought gold for other redditors, knowing that the funds were directly supporting the site. Go take a look at how that worked out. "It's your site", "we couldn't do this without you", meaningless. I remember when they pledged 10% of annual ad revenue to non-profits, selected by the users. They really did the most to make the users feel like they were part of something special. We see how that turned out.
Obviously, support whoever and whatever you like. All I want to do is balance out the optimism. Real money is changing hands here, and some of us have been down this road a couple of times. Those experiences have taught me that it's at least as likely that the site-runners want to be rich and successful as it is that they can resist the temptation when it comes knocking, and that's being generous.
I see what you mean, but I also believe that the value of places like Beehaw often lies in the intermediary stage before they become an institution or wither away and die.
Right now Beehaw is pretty close to the peak of what it can be. It's the equivalent of a large online block party. If it gets bigger than this it will need to institionalize or wither away. What you're asking is for it to institionalize sooner than is necessary, which is what will kill the feeling.
Beehaw has a lifespan to it, we should all recognize this now. Beehaw is great because it runs on good faith and trust. These are limited resources and they'll run out eventually, either sell out or burn out.
The best way to approach it is to put into it what you get out of it, and stop putting into it when you stop getting value out of it.
It feels as though you're confusing the corporate model of websites with Beehaw.
Nothing lasts forever, but the motivations behind enshittification are key to enshittification, with the key one explicitly rejected by Beehaw being growth for its own sake.
There's no need for Beehaw to get bigger, and thanks to the volunteer efforts of the admins and mods, it's currently sustainable through donations. Pivoting to profit isn't inherent to buying a domain and providing a service.
I think it’s a very good one. It conveys what kind of atmosphere you’re trying to achieve, but remains flexible enough that it allows unique responses to unique situations. You don’t get bogged down by people who think they’re cleverly almost breaking the rules, but not quite.
To this question, I think a potential solution would be if this community were to transition into a collaborative organization (i.e. co-op, socialist collective, etc.). Such that the ownership is not concentrated in a small private group and the potential acquisition/buyout/selling-of-data requires a decision process that incorporates the concent/buy-in from the entire community/collective.
In no way am I suggesting this needs to happen, but I would support such a movement.