Mastodon Forks are a collection of ‘Feudal Capitalist Fyrds (forts) ‘ that sees each project run by their master developer as they see fit with their own terms and conditions, sometimes electing to pay the Mastodon core developers for support. Nothing more nothing less. This collection of Mastodon forks and some of the various client projects are not a mass horde of philanthropists, they are for the most part, quite the contrary. Case in point GAB and Truth Social are built on Mastodon forks for profit with paid subscribers and hundreds of thousands of freeium users.
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I get it. If I was able to make enough money from donations, I would be good. But we want to change the world, right? There are far more people looking for a pay check than are purists. Most people don’t care at all. Here is what we’re up against, from the link:
Mastodon is a relatively new player in the social media industry, which, as of 2023, is estimated to drive more than $140 billion in revenue (the majority of it from advertising). That figure is projected to surpass $183 billion by 2027.3
Statista. “Social Networking—Worldwide.”
This is what the big players are making. Here is what it says Mastodon makes:
As of May 2023, the page lists about 9,500 patrons contributing just under $32,000 per month. Their current goal is to fundraise $50,000 per month
To date, Mastodon has raised over $93,000 on Open Collective
In 2021, Mastodon received €53,900 in grant funding and earned €55,300 through Patreon and its own sponsorship portal. It was also selected by the European Commission to receive a bug bounty grant worth €50,000 in 2022.
Like I said before, I need at least $20k/month to live here in the US doing this full time (taxes on the self-employed + health insurance eats about half). So Mastodon makes enough to pay, what 3 people full time? Then you look at the list of monthly active users (from statista):
Active monthly users from Mastodon (according to Servers - Mastodon ):
Much respect to the Mastodon team for what they’ve accomplished, but this is not a model for growth. If we’re going to break out and be successful, we need a way to generate revenue. I’m not going to work this hard to be a foot note of yet another project that failed to gain traction. I want to build something that is in the hands of every person on the planet and to do that, we’re going to need revenue to pay developers, pay UX designers, pay for marketing, pay for content creators. With the state of crypto today leveraging technolgies like smart contracts and by extension, DAOs, I believe that we don’t need a standard corporate structure to get this done either, everything can be decentralized and autonomous. Just as I want no servers, I don’t want to build this either:
If we’re going to change the world, let’s go big. Let’s fight them on the field as equals, not as mosquitos.
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I am going to keep banging the drum on this.
@zettawatt your arguments above are clearly reasons why the first project of the co-op must be the creation of a non-fractionalized digital money based on math assessed resource value employed to execute the job at hand that creates the value for the user is so important.
Building on that resource physical hard store of value , monetized 'transparently and fairly with math tests, monetized/converted one for one as digital money hard of store of value, as owned by the resource operators, in our case the noderunners
is the basis for the four(4) upper layers explained early in this thread, theses layers tie in bottom up from the physical resources deployed bottom up to tie into what is a layer 3 currency system in the current form of $Autonomi/ANT bridged ERC-20 token.
The 4 Cornerstones of the network are CPU, RAM, Network and Storage, the money system needs to be built directly on top of that resource value to monetize it properly.
If the resources get permanently removed, the corresponding digital money (which is serialized to the resource) is burnt and removed from the money supply and the remaining money is supply is recalculated and the value of the digital money representing the remaining value of the resources is re-valued across the board. same thing when more resources are added, tempered by the math valuation of the work the the newly added resources deployed are able to do, which is tied into antnode count and fully reserved 35 GB space per antnode. Keep in mind adding newer faster equipment will effectively deflate the value properly.
This approach, which needs bit more work to detail then codify in a software architecture on top of the existing network does need more work, to build the fair money system described, which I hypothesize is is immune to inflation and human manipulation by not in any way supporting fractional reserve banking.
Our challenge as the co-op imo, is to build the biz case, to raise the ANT capital from existing investors that can be converted partly to pay the co-op contract wages and also acquire some recently used systems to build the Layer 1 Digital Money ‘NAT’ Native Autonomi Token first.
That means the co-op needs to be setting up a multi-sig Smart Contract controlled by the co-op to take in the investments for the project and control the payout to pay wages and acquire used equipment to support the PoC , Test network and eventual QA roll to the existing production network.
It also means Gov4Git is likely the fastest way to create the voting systems among members of the co-op to decide what’s in the SOW and prioritze the execution of the SOW to create the expected outcomes of this first project.
It is the core attraction as well for outside fiat currency investing in the project (through the ETH/ANT Gateway?) .
The driver atracting People to this will be they need a secure place to transfer their hard store of digital value (to protect it from growing inflation) where the value calculation is not opaque, and the predicted relative growth or shrinkage of value is transparent, via math. No some ‘marketeer’ of assets spinning a story.
Gold has been co-opted this way papered over 100X as to what is actually out there (Comex et al)
Silver the same.
Because both of those markets have re-hypothcated (created to much paper beyond what actually exists, a form of fraud) and sold the paper as being real. (An illegal type of fractional reserve currency creation really, as those certificates are currency, not money, only gold and silver physical goods are money in this case.)
Our gold, which remains UN-valued are the systems hardware and software deployed by the noderunner, purchased with fiat, to create useful value, which itself is not properly monetized. The monetization needs to be math determined to determine the ability of the physical resources and the existing software to do the work required to run the network.
It’s no different than an ISP charging you for push bits through wires and offering storage and compute services, except the assets are purchased with fiat, based on a promise to pay more fiat. (I am old enough to remember turning in a Canadian dollar and getting silver dollar in metal back in 1967 as a paper boy (Toronto Telegram), before the wheels feel off that Gold backed system in 1971 when the US would not let specifically France repatriate their gold hordes back to France (It had been stolen along time ago) and instead substituted that value with the US Petro $ (Thanks you Rockefeller and Rothschild Cadres).
Let’s be clear, BTC is not its simply being stuffed with buying power depreciating fiat, which inflates the prices of everything, even Lambos)
We have a chance, only one chance to get this right, and it starts with the creation of digital money that cannot be rehypothecated. (no fractional reserve banking and lending).
Build the business case on this above fact, and the Autonomi Co-Op can attract existing Autonomi investors into the project and new investors into the project as well , where one converts their fiat acquired tokens and directly their fiat into that new digital form of money I have been referencing as NAT..
This means re-purposing the earlier very good proof of resource work done by Maidsafe into that new digital form of money, not currency.
Do the above, and the funding appears to pay for the development a test network and other non dev efforts in marketing etc..… so everybody wins, the investors get refuge from crazy inflation, the Co-Op team gets the funds to build out the ‘ digital money layer 1’ and then some, to do all the value add, ‘add-ons’ up the stack.. mentioned through out this post and other posts and in IF.
nuff said, I am all ears with counter arguments if they are backed with a better idea of how to do this. 
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I think is very difficult to make such comparisons, between new models and the status quo. For example, and I’m not saying this changes your conclusions, comparing revenue from these two models ignores how that income is distributed.
You need a lot less total revenue for coders to survive if that revenue is distributed equitably, compared to how revenue is currently distributed. Those doing the work that you do get a tiny amount compared to those all the way up the corporate gravy train.
So there could be a lot more efficiency and a lot less waste in a system where revenue from users ho goes directly to those doing the work, especially when infrastructure, VC, and other inefficiencies have been eliminated.
What I’m saying is that this can work. No guarantees, but certainly it’s a different game. It hinges on mass adoption much more than anything. So maybe switch analysis to look from the bottom up: numbers of users per coder, and how much revenue is needed per user. Get an idea of that and set targets to deliver apps which can gain the required level of use, to generate the revenue needed to build and maintain.
Removing the inefficiencies reduces these numbers dramatically, so the question becomes what suits and how to ensure they are accessible to anyone, and how to ensure enough people get the opportunity to feel the benefits.
Bottoms up, not tops down 
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That’s why its a co-op, which needs a voting mechanism and a money model and we push the investment through the existing network currency, and a multi sig Smart contract to control inflows and outflows into the co-op voted on project.
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The mass investor attracting ‘ honey’ is ‘inflation safe harbor’ and that is non-fractionalized money and later up the stack Layer 4 currency lending also without fractionalization/re-hypothecation anchored to the value of the purposed digital money model found in this thread.
in a similar vein same goes for more noderunners and deployment of resources, you get rid of the current game which is oversubscribe the storage to run more rewards to collect subsidies (which we don’t need) by writing PoR math tests that defeat that, and include a check in the antnode code that calculates and reports that and also devalues the money wallet only of the noderunner representing the value of the system deployed to do the work required (run antnodes and store chunks and dish up chunks when asked quickly (It does not de-value the antnode currency wallet).
I encourage everyone to really study the four layer model in this thread to see how the layers connect, it benefits everyone by moving the conversation along to improve and come to a consensus on what do do in this use case.
Imo Doing something first just delays the inevitable, and keeps the overall project spinning sideways and flat lining.
Think ‘Wealth of Nations’ re-write.
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more fyi stuff..
Activate Gov4Git on GitHub
To activate Gov4Git on GitHub, you need to deploy the governance system using a desktop application or a command-line client. The process involves setting up two types of deployments: one for the community governance, managed by a community organizer, and one for each individual community member. The community organizer owns the governance repository and operates a periodic (cron) job to process actions like votes, which are submitted by members through a “drop box” mechanism. Each community member administers their own member deployment, which is a personal git repository with a public URL. The desktop application, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, simplifies the deployment and management process for non-technical users. Detailed instructions for deployment, management, and collaboration are provided in the User’s Manual.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts.
GitHub - gov4git/gov4git: Decentralized governance for Git communities
gov4git/README.md at main · gov4git/gov4git
GitHub - gov4git/lib4git: Libraries for building git applications
doc/summary/summary.md at main · gov4git/doc
stuck on Device Activation · community · Discussion #8468
How do I use GitHub Pages? - Learn web development | MDN
Git Guides - install git · GitHub
An Intro to Git and GitHub for Beginners (Tutorial)
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I struggle to follow the logic in the way it’s currently presented, or the exact structure of what’s proposed, and it’s relation to current AUTONOMI tokens.
Is it a proposal for a whole network monetary system, or just a specific money for the cooperative?
Maybe a new thread just for this proposal is needed, with an opening post with a concise and clear rationale for each layer is given, perhaps with diagrams to help demonstrate the concept.
After reading what you’ve written, I’m not clear on the benefits your proposed system would offer that the ‘official’ native version of AUTONOMI would not, and why 4 layers would be needed.
AUTONOMI is already eventually inflation-proof (limited supply), is linked to network resources, and will be usable in defi lending products (via ERC20 version, assuming 2-way bridge)… once Native AUTONOMI is here, why add more?
Another reason for suggesting a separate thread for this is that it likely needs focused discussion, and I would be surprised if many agreed that a new complex money/currency system is a pre-requisite for starting an ‘MVP’ cooperative to brainstorm & collaborate on getting some cool apps built / shipped / tested / marketed.
It’s great to hear talk about monetary innovation though, and I’d be interested to hear clarifications on your proposed system, perhaps in a dedicated thread if that’s more appropriate.
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There are a few things to pick up on here:
- You live in one of the most expensive places on earth, while many of your customers will not. $20k could allow some folks to live for many months, maybe much longer. This makes your job that much harder, if you have an international customer base.
- People have grown used to paying little/no money for stuff, because free is what hooks people. Much later, this user base is then monetized, often with value add sales. Anything that relies on a big network (to be useful) will see this amplified.
- Most software apps or tools have already been written and there is usually a free version (with the basic feature set).
Ofc, the above is nothing new, but we need to thoroughly accept this reality.
To make money out of writing software, I’d argue that it needs to be leveraged into a package that sells. Often this compliments or enhances an existing product line, adding value, which then both increases the user base and funds the development.
This product line maybe someone else’s too. They bring the product and money to write the software and the devs are paid the money to develop it. In short, software consultancy and there are many successful companies that grow from very little to functioning/profitable organisations.
Either that, or you need very deep pockets to build out something for free, with a goal of monetizing it in the distant future. Deep pockets. Angel investors, etc. They have money to burn on a punt for a big return, but most folks do not.
So, from my perspective, there a few lines of attack:
- Develop open source software as a free platfrom, then pitch to be the expert at integrating it. This works, as folks can see your work and understand that you must be expert with it. In other words, build your shop window.
- it isn’t enough just to build a platform - it must be pitched too. Blogging, vlogging, social media, etc. Without the buzz, folks won’t find then platform. Same goes for autonomi/maidsafe, but they are both much further along and their success can breed publicity for app devs (or sink them, in reverse).
- Build out a reputation of delivery for the above. Celebrate and publicise the wins. More of above about them, etc.
- Diversify too, into complimentary areas to build more platforms to rinse and repeat. Maybe tackle a different area of the space (e.g. appliances with integrated software, or other spin offs).
- Above takes serious time and effort. Establishing regular customers and partners is hard and takes a long time. Not all of them need to be Autonomi only too. You build what puts food on the table, while trying to grow the bits of the company you really like.
I wish it was easier, but business is a slog to build out, in my (small ltd) experience. Seeing personal spend without profit is also both scary and demoralising. I’d suggest taking the easier wins at times, doing some less desirable work to keep things ticking over, to keep confidence in where you are heading.
I’d also suggest reading and/or watching videos about business building, marketing, etc. Maybe consider writing a business plan, or at least define targets/goals for where things should head and how to ensure things don’t get derailed.
Finally, a problem shared is often someone else’s problem. A community coop sounds cool, but perhaps it should be viewed as a consultant pool, with folks bidding to do the work. As a network of autonomi talent, rather than something more integrated/formal. From my perspective, that’s the maximum I’d be comfortable with, at least until we are much further down a profitable road (individually and collectively).
Hmm. Short post ended up long! Ha!
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Also many app developers are using scale to help. If you sell an app for 10 cents to 3 billion people with a computer/tablet/phone then you make 300 million dollars. If you try to sell an app for 1000 dollars aiming for at least 100 people buying it to break even then get 10 people actually buying it before some other enterprising person (or thief) builds similar and sells for 1 dollar to 1 million people. Then you will not break even when factoring in time.
So yea, its not an easy jungle to make a path through.
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What if you added payslave to your bulk uploaders with code that took a 1% commission for yourself? At that point the tech would be proven and if implemented as an easy to dep lib, maybe MaidSafe would integrate it into the official client? That would add a lot of value to the network.
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I remember reading your colony IF pitch @zettawatt and you mentioned your Appalachian Trail (amazing) and homesteading (i lived in Scottish mountains for three years in a van-epic!) and i thought why not try and frame the Co-op in a manner congruent with what you (and millions of developers) enjoy … so here is my (used ai as scaffolding) attempt 
Economics or branding not included (although i’ve run the numbers) in this, just an explainer document.
The Village Market: When Dev Co-ops Feel Like Home 
Picture this: What if we (dweb/3) stopped trying to “disrupt” everything and just built something that feels… human?
The Digital Farmers Market
Forget the Silicon Valley playbook for a minute. In this co-op vision, for example using ideas like The Village (@happybeing) hosts a bustling digital farmers market where:
Local produce = Your blogs, indie games, digital art, educational tools, community-built apps—all the creative work that gets buried by Big Tech’s algorithms
Market stalls = Think Yellow Pages 2.0 (print on demand), but alive and kicking. Each stall is a creator’s profile + showcase + direct interaction hub. No static listings here—we’re talking live video demos, real-time chat, instant booking, digital goods, and genuine human connection.
Discovery works like it should: Local-first (support your neighbors!), then federated out to the wider network. No black-box algorithms deciding who gets seen—just organic, community-driven discovery.
The whole vibe? Social, vibrant, and refreshingly ad-free. We’ve replaced Big Tech’s ad surveillance with our own community exposure engine. People don’t just come to buy—they come to belong, to see what’s new, meet the humans behind the code, and support what actually matters to them.
The Innovation Tent 
Here’s where it gets interesting for communites…
Tucked away in a quiet corner sits The Innovation Tent—our answer to the broken VC model. Instead of pitching to sharks who want to extract maximum value, big ideas get pitched to the community itself.
- Risk gets distributed across the co-op (no more single founders burning out)
- Rewards flow back into the community economy
- The whole market rallies behind the next big thing—whether it’s game-changing SaaS, revolutionary edtech, or something none of us saw coming
Think Dragon’s Den without the dragons. Shark Tank without the sharks. Innovation without extraction. Venture building as a community sport where everyone wins.
The Business Case
This isn’t just feel-good co-op dreaming. The market opportunity is massive:
- Creators are desperate for alternatives to platform dependency
- Small businesses need better discovery than Google’s pay-to-play model
- Communities want to support local digital talent
- Developers are tired of building someone else’s empire
Ralph breaking the internet… but locally, sustainably, and yes—with a tractor!
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May be of interest to some:
Software in the Public Interest (SPI) is a non-profit corporation registered in the state of New York founded to act as a fiscal sponsor for organizations that develop open source software and hardware. Our mission is to help substantial and significant open source projects by handling their non-technical administrative tasks so that they aren’t required to operate their own legal entity.
Services offered to projects can be found here. Projects interested in becoming associated with SPI should read the Associated Project HOWTO. The relationship between SPI and associated projects is explained here.
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Thank you for sharing the Veillid stuff and especially this piece of info @jane. I’d seen them before, but you see so many names in this space, I usually don’t follow up. Will be checking this project out off the back of your comments. Cheers
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The explanation of the diagram
In 4 Layer Money Model fiat vs what could be.
Layer 1 (Gold - Primary Savings/Settlement): Focuses on the foundational asset (node resources like cores, RAM, net, and store) and NAT as a unit of account based on velocity and volume, aligning with the attachment’s emphasis on monetized resources and gold’s store-of-value role.
- Layer 2 (Gold Certs/Bank Notes): Introduces ADCC as an intermediate utility currency and internal conversion mechanism ($AUTONOMI ↔ NAT), reflecting the attachment’s digital cash certs and internal transfer system.
- Layer 3 (Bank Deposit-Bank Note Promise): Incorporates $Autonomi Tokens in wallets as collateralized deposits, mirroring the attachment’s shift from fractional lending to token-based collateral.
- Layer 4 (Buy on Credit/Deposit Pay Layer): Encompasses the transactional layer with hardware wallets, blockchain, AI assistance, secure storage, physical output (3D printing), and biometric authentication, aligning with the attachment’s FUEL EVM, smart contracts, and node-runner systems for credit and price discovery.
Alright, I’m getting back in the saddle after basically unplugging for a week and a half. My last day of employment is Wednesday and then I’m full time on this stuff. Here is my high level plan of how to kick this thing off (any suggestions welcome 
):
Phase 1: Kickoff/Brainstorm
- I’ll setup a kickoff call where we can take stock of who we have, agree on rules of order, and send out the request for all who are interested in joining the initial group. Probably the first week of October. Anyone have any dates/times in particular?
- The next several calls, emails, forum posts, etc. will be open to pitches by anyone with an idea for what they think we should implement first.
- Ideally it will be a high level architectural representation of what we should build, how it will be useful to users, and what (if any) profit can be derived from developing this application/library.
- That said, any idea is good at this phase, even if it becomes just a small part of the larger ecosystem, it will help use determine where the boundary is between end user applications and the frameworks that support them (we’ll be developing both).
Phase 2: Project consolidation and hashing out the details
- Next we will work through the pitches and determine what projects answer this question: Acknowledging the skills and manpower we have, which project(s) will reach the most “typical” internet users? I don’t think we should focus on the nerd-o-sphere, we should be targeting everyone with a phone in their pocket.
- Likely we’ll take bits and pieces from all of the pitches. I imagine a web-app-esque type platform that everything can run on.
- From here we come up with a detailed architecture of what we want to build, the libraries we’ll use, how the different pieces integrate, etc.
Phase 3: Implementation
- And finally, we go off and start working on our individual components based on interest and available time commitment.
- We’ll need a place where we can interact with each other on a regular basis. Maybe this forum or maybe codeberg? Something we’ll need to figure out when we get there.
That’s my high level plan anyway, what do you guys think of this as a start?
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What do you think about:
Phase 0: Prepare for meeting
I think it would be important for everyone to think through some basic questions, and maybe even prepare a short list, that could be then shared to everyone? It will be easier to brainstorm later, and have this as foundation, not influenced by what will be said on the meeting.
- What I can contribute, what can I do? Skills, areas of interest, assets (codebase, money, infrastructure). Perhaps a CV/LinkedIn?
- What do I expect to get? Expectations, gains.
- Things important to me. Vision, values.
- Things I want to avoid. Red flags.
Do we need to wait for October?
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