Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko rejected more than five Silicon Valley VC offers for “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to protect the platform's nonprofit status
Financial Times Ian Johnston
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- @Techmeme@techhub.social how dumb do you have to be as an investor to offer that much money for something that anyone can fork and use however they like? That lives from a community that despises any commercialization? @pkreissel@chaos.social
- @pkreissel @Techmeme@techhub.social Probably because they do not understand the concept of FOSS (licenses). All they know and see is a platform that becomes more popular, so they must buy it now to milk the profit. … @BafDyce@chaos.social
- “Mastodon will not turn into everything you hate about Twitter,” said Rochko. “The fact that it can be sold to a controversial billionaire, the fact that it can be shut down, go bankrupt and so on. … @dave@social.masto.land
- @Techmeme@techhub.social What would they buy that wouldn't instantly turn to dust in their hands? The #Mastodon codebase? Everyone moves to a fork, like happened with LibreOffice. The mastodon.social instance? … @david_megginson@mstdn.ca
- When I set up my instance, I was swiftly pitched by an accelerator in SF. The vectoralist class (Wark) does not know what to do with #mastodon and that's a feature, not a bug. https://www.ft.com/... @profcarroll@federate.social
Discussion
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Ars Technica
Ian Johnston
on mastodon
Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to preserve nonprofit status
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The Guardian
Dan Milmo
on mastodon
Mastodon founder says investors lining up since Elon Musk's Twitter takeover
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SiliconANGLE
Mike Wheatley
on mastodon
Mastodon founder vows to preserve platform's nonprofit status
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@atomicpoet@mastodon.social
Chris Trottier
on mastodon
It's cool that @Gargron is rejecting funding from VC firms. But this is all the more reason why Mastodon needs donations. And not just Mastodon—everyone who's building free and open source Fediverse apps. https://arstechnica.com/...
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@jeffjarvis@mastodon.social
Jeff Jarvis
on mastodon
@Gargron turns down VC investment for Mastodon, bless him. That's not to say that there are not investment needs & opportunities atop the Fediverse: back-end (there are already hosting services; I could see others for storage …
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@craignewmark@mastodon.social
Craig Newmark
on mastodon
@Techmeme@techhub.social Any updates re US 501c3? Thanks!
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@ssfckdt@mastodon.cloud
@ssfckdt@mastodon.cloud
on mastodon
@djtaktix@mstdn.social @Techmeme@techhub.social The oft missed fact (by #clueless #technology #journalists) is that Rochko does not really “own” Mastodon as a service or as a piece of software. …
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@suji_yan
Suji Yan
on x
Have a lot of respect to Eugen on non-profit decision @joinmastodon . Though we chose to raise money back in the days I still think beautiful parts of cyberspace are public good and mostly funded by the people. https://twitter.com/...
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@barbariancap
@barbariancap
on x
what are the odds this goes the way other Twitter alternatives did? Twitter rival Mastodon rejects funding to protect non-profit status https://www.ft.com/...
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@wilbanks
John Wilbanks
on x
Once while I was working for a non profit in a project w a large technology company, an executive slapped the table and said “this would be so much easier if we could just buy you” Like yeah that was the point https://twitter.com/...
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@dada_drummer
Damon K
on x
Mastodon is punk rock @joinmastodon https://twitter.com/...
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@tariqkrim
@tariqkrim
on x
In the early days of the Internet, most services were academic-built, open-source, and non-profit. This is why internet tools like the web work. I wish open protocol were still part of the current culture. https://www.ft.com/...
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@astaniscia86
Giulio S.
on x
Membership model is hard. Mastodon has >2.5 million monthly active users but only 8,500 donors. It raises just £25,000 a month. https://www.ft.com/... https://twitter.com/...
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@martinsfp
@martinsfp
on x
Haha. Mastodon keeps knocking back offers of VC cash. https://giftarticle.ft.com/...
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@profcarroll
David Carroll
on x
Investors fail to realize that the key feature of mastodon is that it can neither be bought nor yield a profit. And that's why it's so beautiful. We can have nice things! https://www.ft.com/...
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@davewiner
Dave Winer
on x
“Mastodon will not turn into everything you hate about Twitter,” said Rochko. “The fact that it can be sold to a controversial billionaire, the fact that it can be shut down, go bankrupt and so on. It's the difference in paradigms.” https://www.ft.com/...