simple question. I am just curious, about new view. Will be all 12 project monetized from maidsafe funds? thx
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You mean like long term financial support?
I hope not because that would drain their fundsā¦ Better to let maidsafe focus on network development and the apps that are sustainable long term (or little enough effort from devs) will surviveā¦
ā¦ One nice aspect about autonomi apps is that app users pay for their own dataā¦ So there is no need to invest upfront for all the generated user data 
itās just your time and neglectable money for testing/setting up the app
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For me, working on AntTP and IMIM is largely a labour of love. Iām fortunate that 1. I find it fun, 2. I believe it is good for freedom, 3. I can afford to work less.
That said, I do receive some funding form Maidsafe for AntTP development (which is why it wasnāt in IF), but at āmateās ratesā vs my normal day job. Every little helps though and it is something to build on (excuse pun!).
I like to think AntTP and IMIM will also be portfolio projects for other business that may come my way. They are my Autonomi āshop windowā. I hope that it will lead to more consultancy and dev work from other parties who appreciate what has been done.
Ofc, it would be nice if there were some donations to those project. Having more rounds of IF would also be very cool, especially if it is coming from the bamboo garden fund (as originally intended).
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To add, I do think there are traditional ways to fund development. You can still put them in app stores or request payments, etc. You can even wrap autonomi backends in more restrictive, hosted, front ends.
Ofc, it depends what your goals are. If you want to free the world of walled gardens like twitter/X, facebook, insta, etc, then maybe creating another one on autonomi isnāt the target.
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I am curious about new business model and the same time I ask yourself that if only people do free, then u there wouldnt be āmassiveā commercical boost by people who dont want do it free, if u get me (so less next projects)
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There are a few avenues for revenue that I plan to implement in my stuff. One is direct donations from users. However, that will never be a big money maker. For binaries on app stores they will cost a small amount, couple dollars or so (to pay for the hassle and cost of putting apps on the app store). Another is a convenience fee for uploads using the app itself, so something like 1% to 5% surcharge to all files uploaded through the app paid in AUTONOMI. Users could optionally increase this as a donation as well. In the future I think this will probably be the best way to generate consistent income from apps that are generating a lot of upload traffic. For now with the ETH:AUTONOMI cost ratio something like 100:1, this isnāt a viable source of income today. Ad bars in precompiled binaries could also make a little money on the side. Something like Brave ads that are generic and arenāt tracking users.
Like @riddim said, the only cost is software development and marketing. There is no hosting overhead, compliance costs, etc. Release the app and get paid. With AI getting better all the time, even the cost to develop apps will become minimal. You wonāt need to be a trillion dollar company to develop the next viral app, it could just be some guy in his garage. Where Google needs billions for something to be profitable, Joe Shmo only needs a few million to never have to worry about money again. And if apps are interoperable using the same data, it is a game changer for the walled garden software landscape we have today.
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Speaking of monetizing apps, anyone look at AADS?: https://aads.com/
Looks like they pay you directly in crypto, so no sign up garbage, just automated pay outs based on traffic. Ads are a simple HTML banner: no cookies, no tracking, no targetting users, just logging unique IP addresses to determine traffic. Seems to be heavily focused on web3 and crypto stuff, which, like it or not, weāre in that space. Once I get Colony to a good launch point I may see what they would charge to do an ad campaign.
Searching around the web, it looks like they used to have some kind of āAd unit for the appā feature, but I donāt see it on their site now. Looks like they want a URL. Iāll email them and see if this is something we can tie into. With a Tauri based app, it seems like it would just plug-in, but Iām unsure what all they are doing under the hood.
Anyone have any experience with these guys?
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Their chat support is friendly, fast and seems human
More later
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I did contact them. They said they do not have the ability to post ads on apps, only web pages. Their support person told me to file an offer on their marketplace with my proposal and theyād get back with me. Iāll let you all know what I hear back. Iām thinking a banner on the Colony search page in all precompiled binaries. If you compile from source, you could remove it, obviously, but this could be part of the convenience fee for using a binary. Could have an option to pay to disable. Not sure I like having ads, but good to know that we have options.
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I donāt like them for sure xD but I think it could be a smart route - allowing people to have a choice and the developer to pay his billsā¦
You could openly communicate at which usd equivalent of token from donations/pay the developer per month you will remove the ad because the app then is sustainable (and itās not about squeezing out everything from your users but itās about you being able to pay for your food)
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Autonomi will no doubt have paywall apps, and free apps, and anything else that free people, who now own their own data, can dream of.
In many ways, It will be a free for all.
But itās our network, so we must endeavour to be good stewards, but we all got to eat, right?
If there is profit to be had, let it be at least in the hands of the individual, and not the corporations?
Unfortunately the latter, by the very nature of a decentralized network, is also invited to the party too.
The good news, is that Autonomi offers a level playing field.
Let the games begin!
May we all profit beyond just coins, but in the true value of improving all of our lives. Cheers
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I fully agree with both of these statements. Weāre essentially starting over, so the more options that are available, the better. I think the biggest problem/opportunity I see now is how we determine the value of these apps. Traditional internet was āfreeā and people were bombarded with ads and tracking to pay for it. Are people willing to put up some cash for apps? Or would they rather keep the āfreeā experience they are used to? If paid, how much? $0.50? $1? $10? Pay once and own the app forever? Or would they rather have a small monthly fee or pay per use? There will be a sweet spot somewhere in between all of this Iām sure, and the value proposition will be different based on the app and specific user. Or maybe we just give all options to the user and let them pick themselves? Or is that too much choice and weād get complaints about that?
I guess all that to say, I donāt want to be a jerk and duplicate the experience people have on the internet today, but I donāt want to leave money on the table either. Trying to figure out the right balance 
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Side bar thought I had last night. Iām wondering if Autonomi app developers could form a kind of side-hustle economy. The first person to figure out how to make a few thousand dollars a month will open the flood gates. For me, if I can make $20k/month before taxes, thatās all I need to live comfortably here in the US. Maybe I can get that through one app, but more likely it will take several to add up to that amount. That said, we need a large ecosystem with many competing apps to bring in as many users as possible, otherwise apps may never see profitability.
In the chip industry, there are a lot of tool vendors making software to help design/verify chips that companies make. The mantra in this industry is work together to develop standards, compete for customers. Maybe we form a kind of trade group for Autonomi app developers where we sort out standards to make stuff interoperable.
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I would strap in for a long period of feeling poor! 
Not meaning to deter/scare you, but it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears before a company makes good enough money to replace a well paid, professional, employment.
Iād also suggest focussing on the product and core values. Trying to extract too much, too soon, may lead to apps never getting off the ground.
Consider that you will be competing with angel investor money, not expecting profit your years. They can offer stuff for free, long after competitors have been starved out. Even more so in IT, and even more than that in crypto.
Maidsafe have some how avoided angel investors so far, through ingenuity on the investment side (ico, bttf, donations), but that isnāt the norm in the space. Indeed, even growing a small company organically seems rare in the space.
So, my advice is, find a second income and strap in for the long haul. Or, find some investors willing to fund a project until it makes profit. The latter is much more āall inā and something I have little experience in. The former, I have some form, but it makes everything a slow burner.
Perhaps inviting funding from investors could be an avenue this community can help to forge? I donāt know how connected folks are behind their nicknames, but the bamboo garden fund happened and others may be keen too. Perhaps we even have some fund raising professionals in our midst?
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Absolutely. Iāve got about 2 years I can work on this full time before having to worry about getting a job. I donāt expect to make anything in that time, well, hopefully Iāll start to see some returns before I totally run out of money 
. Iād like to avoid the VC crowd as long as possible. They seem to swoop in, steal everything of value, and destroy anything good about a project.
I will say that 5 years ago, I donāt think we would have had much chance getting traction on apps here. But now, with Europe and the US (at least in some states) pushing this age verification and other garbage down peopleās throats, with the right apps and marketing people could be drawn here. This is a paradigm shift moment. We should be capitalizing on this as much as we can. I didnāt think I would ever see they day where my father in law would be asking me about VPNs, but here we are.
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Within that period I would like us to begin supporting independent platforms and app stores because freedoms are being curtailed by those with wealth everywhere. That is what they do.
Today Google announced plans to prevent anyone using apps on Android that are created by developers who have not registered their ID with Google. Starting late 2026 and worldwide in 2027.
We need to support all platforms in the short term, but should give as much priority to independent mobile OS and independent app stores and distribution.
This should include an app or apps that distribute other apps directly from Autonomi.
Thatās not to ignore how devs are rewarded, but if we donāt do this it will be much harder for them because thatās the lesson of corporations holding power over platforms and applications.
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Actually, that is a potential avenue for funding too - an Autonomi app store.
The app binaries/data can live on Autonomi to disperse the hosting fees (and dev can pay tokens to upload), which is a good start.
Perhaps users would agree to a suggested tip/payment in order to get a download link too? Without chicanery, it would be easy for folks to share a link and avoid it, but a small, direct to dev, voluntary payment may feel appropriate.
At least that takes the likes of Google out of the loop and gets revenue directly to developers.
EDIT: btw, I feel for Apple users, but love or hate Google, itās still easier to install packages directly to Android to bootstrap a new app store.
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Sounds like this will change. From what I gather, after this point, youāll need to have certified Google keys to install 3rd party Android apps on phones in the future, just like Apple iOS. That is unfortunate.
Maybe the Autonomi app store idea could be expanded upon. Instead this āappā is a kind of app sandbox and framework based on Tauri (since that seems to be the go to these days). So the app store isnāt just a store, it is a sandbox where apps could run and bypass all the app store bureacracy. We could have backend apps in rust where you could install Autonomi network service layer apps, like colonylib, dweb, or anttp. Ideally all running a common communication protocol, like the REST endpoints we have now. And you could have frontend apps that are just JS/HTML apps that talk with the backend service layer and displayed in tabs (or something) in the sandbox app. All of this lives in one āappā that you download from the app store and would handle your keys, wallet, etc. That way we just have to do the app store nonsense once, enabling developers to do their thing within the confines of this environment. We just need to agree on the API within this app. It would also open up development to JS folks on the frontend side, of which there are a huge number of them, since they wouldnāt need to know any rust. We could have Pay the Developer baked in as well. So say you build a frontend app that uses a backend service. We could split the upload fee revenue between the different applications used, for example. Or have a tip jar that is distributed to all components making that particular app possible.
I donāt know, lots of possibilities here. But if weāre going to be fighting app stores N number of times, it would be better for everyone if we only had to do it once. What do you guys think?
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Do you have a link for that? Android has allowed āinstall unknown appsā for as long as I remember.
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Web has always been a more free option, and thatās one reason for the push towards apps by those wanting more power. So I will always push web over apps. Weāll also need to make the most of apps though, in order to reach more people.
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