Submitted 3 weeks ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://matrix.org/blog/2025/06/funding-homeserver-premium/
Matrix org isn’t obligated to run a public instance at all - they could stick to developing the spec, and let other people run instances.
And honestly maybe they should, because then we wouldnt have this huge consolidation problem on matrix.org in the first place
so ... Matrix Nitro?
Matrix became the new Discord
It would take hundreds of millions of dollars to make Matrix as shit as Discord is.
The Matrix.org Foundation is a non-profit and only relies on donations to operate. Its core mission is to maintain the Matrix Specification, but it does much more than that.
Non-profit… only relies on donations…
At some point donations become unsustainable. Like literally their options are to start charging or close up shop.
The smarter thing to do would be to rotate instances on sign-up to decentralize the Matrix-verse but it’s probably too late now.
Ads win out in the end, more lucrative for the business model, and thats usually when enshittification occurs.
The context in the article is important. Similar to what FUTO preaches-- people don’t donate. That’s why corporate solutions usually win. Better to charge a bit of money so we can have nice things.
The same people that enshitified open source licences ?
I used to have $5 on Patreon… but it seemed dead. I wrote a message asking what’s up, but no response.
The whole org is a shitshow from what little pieces of info I have, still waiting for Dendride, hoping the front-ends will stabilize.
I’ve been using Matrix selfhosted as my primary communication tool since 2017, not connecting it to matrix.org (tried once, deleted instance afterwards), and I love it, but the org… meh.
Wish the homeserver portability would be worked on more. The ability to change homeserver would really allow people to more easily move on from matrix.org.
Myself included ;).
Optimally it would even allow the switch “after the fact”, so after your original homeserver is down, assuming your client has a local copy of the server-side secret storage. It would need to be based on some cryptographic identity then, I suppose.
Yes, this would be a great feature - but it’s a big issue to implement. It’s talked about in this video, worth watching if you’re curious about it.
As far as status go, this issue on the matrix spec is what you want to follow.
There’s something that kinda helps with the migration: ems.element.io/tools/matrix-migration
It’s nice that this exists, but even for this I’d prefer to use an open source tool.
And it of course helps with migration only if the old HS is still online…
I think most practically this migration function would be built inside some Matrix client (one that would support more than one server to start with), but I suppose a standalone tool would be a decent solution as well.
We have been communicating on the lack of funds in the Foundation for a while now, the latest being here. And whilst we’ve been working hard to gather new members and are happy to see the number of logos increasing (thank you all for seeing the need for Matrix to stay independent and safe, and the value in supporting it!), none of the big players in the ecosystem have actually committed to one of the higher membership tiers, so we need to find other ways towards sustainability.
🤔
Sounds like that business plan isn’t working out like you hoped…
And/Or not enough users care to use your product.
🤷♂️
The plan was to rely on donations, which doesn’t usually work for hosted products.
That’s not how non-profit foundations work.
😂
Still need users. And folks who like/want/use the product enough to care to donate.
If neither is happening, you’re business model is failing. Profit or nonprofit.
🤷♂️
$170k/year for 1 person is no joke.
This is just a grift to take advantage of morons.
Don’t be one of them.
A two bedroom, one bathroom house built in the 80s in San Francisco cost $1.1 million a couple years back. I don’t suppose cost of living in most big cities went down.
For comparison, Mitchell Baker, the former CEO of Mozilla, saw her yearly pay rise from $2.4 million in 2018 to 6.9 million in 2022. I think it’s perfectly adequate for the CEO of matrix to earn the salary of a moderately successful software engineer.
I hope Matrix is not on its way to becoming Discord
i think the main problem was that when matrix was blowing up, matrix.org was the promoted server to sign up on.
i don't have a problem with this as it's just one server and you can always hop on another server if you like, though.
which reminds me, i do need to find another matrix (preferably queer focused) instance since i was on matrix.org
blahaj has one!
oohh, looks up! thx! :3
Premium, dude!
Jokes aside, fuck this shit.
and the entire protcol with it, they just have better marketing than xmpp, and from what i read are even worse protocol.
xmpp is still the best, nobody's ever going to change my mind. jabber 4 lyfe!
It’s a load of bullshit and we shouldn’t trust them.
It’s a load of bullshit…
Based on what?
For just $19.95 a month you can talk to all your friends!
You can do that for free. But for that low, low price, you can talk to your friends with a Matrix Green checkmark next your name! #worthit
A green check!!! Wow! Sign me up baby!
XMPP
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Not trying to be a dick but the Executive Director can take a fucking pay cut.
Image
I found a reddit thread from 4 months ago where he said his salary was $170k/year. I’m not saying he is making obscene money, but if that’s nearly 15% of all operating costs he can shave that down to $80k-$100k and still live comfortably if he’s willing to accept a more austere standard of living.
I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve to be paid well, but he’s getting a damn sight better pay than moderators and community managers who seem to make up 30% of the budget for multiple people.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Depends on what that title actually means. Viewing it as a pie chart skews it so you don’t realize that $170k in USD is pretty mediocre for a Director of Engineering role. If the project dies without this person, and that’s what they need in salary to make it worth it to keep them there, then that’s what they get paid.
It’s not like they’re even making an obscene amount of money ffs. That’s a middling engineering salary, and this person is running the whole show. You should see what other “director” jobs at much shittier companies get paid. I think twice this amount would be a weak guess. If this person was a prick, they’d be milking that goat and taking all the free money.
This is an open source project backed by a non-profit foundation, granted, but this person is taking a massive pay cut just by working this job. Think about how that might impact their life to make that choice while trying to have a family.
$170k salary still won’t you a fucking house in this country unless you live in the middle of nowhere, and this person is almost certainly in a major tech hub city, so that money means diddly when trying to pay the bills. It’s barely above the poverty line in Silicon Valley after taxes for reference.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
If they have to pay their Executive Director that much as a non-profit and are failing to meet their funding goals as a non-profit the amount he gets paid has fuck-all to do with where he lives, and has everything to do with him failing at his job to secure funding.
So we’re supposed to fund this guys lifestyle as people who donate to the project while the project itself twists in the wind? Give me a fucking break, dude. This is how you set your organization up for failure.
Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Exactly. I’m nowhere close to the top of the tech ladder, but I make more than that and still have to rent and will be renting for several more years. To buy an average house in this city, it would be like 7k/month without a 20% down payment. And household debt needs to be 30% of your total income so I would need to make $250k to even get approved for a loan for an average house in the city.
zloubida@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That’s probably because I live in another country which works very differently, so what I’ll say is not a judgement about the veracity of your comment, but I find incredible that $14’000 a month could be in any capacity considered a mediocre salary… the French president earns that in euros!
FireIced@lemmy.super.ynh.fr 3 weeks ago
You don’t have to buy a house every year
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
170k for running a company? Shit. I wouldn’t do that. You can make just as much being a halfway competent developer, and it’s way less stress.
FireIced@lemmy.super.ynh.fr 3 weeks ago
I guess you live in the USA? No one makes this amount of money
kayky@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
It must not be that stressful if you have $170k leftover to pay yourself.
Most people work more stressful jobs for considerably less. We should stop giving CEOs a pass.
This shouldn’t need to be said, but most people are useful idiots so here we are.
Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Maybe. But $170K isn’t what it used to be, even 5 years ago. Especially if you have kids.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Does that matter if he is failing to secure enough funding to run the non-profit? If they’re risking shutting down major portions of what they do as the guiding foundation for the Matrix protocol, isn’t that literally his fault since he’s in charge? If the non-profit fails are all the people who donated their fucking money in hopes of it succeeding going to be happy that instead of being willing to take a haircut on pay to save the damn organization he was instead using their donated funds to fund his fucking lifestyle instead of, I don’t know, living in a more modest area and doing more of the foundation business remotely?
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
i made 100k last year, so I feel I have a good grasp of what 60ish k more would be
imo you can just fuck off with this argument
Myro@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
To be fair, that’s the lowest executive salary I’ve seen in a looong time.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
What’s with the “Trust and Safety” bit? And are the events really necessary?
Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Your solution to someone complaining that the boss is earning too much is to suggest they pay the other workers less (or not at all)?
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Ah yes, exploit free labor. Capitalism’s favorite way to make money.
kayky@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s all grifts for morons by scumbags.
Some idiots were really trying to peddle the lie that infosec.exchange costs $5000/month to host while of course providing no verifiable evidence, just “trust them bro.” It’s sad watching suckers lap it up without a second thought.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Exec@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Now 9 wonder if there’s a similar report for Mozilla
QBertReynolds@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
You can pull the form 990 for any non-profit in the US pretty easily. Here’s Mozilla’s: projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/…/200097189
kazerniel@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I am, that much money is obscene. Converted that’s like 125k GBP, you can buy a house for cash every 3 years in the UK from that much money O.o
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I make only slightly less than that in American dollars and I’m not at all close to running a company. I’m very solidly lower middle class I will also not be buying a hour for another 5-6 years.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
yeah every 3 years is too much!
… well, tax so
every 5 years then!
… oh right rent he’d pay in the interim
fine every 7 years!
… ahhhh food costs money too!
okay okay every 8 years!
… i guess people do tend to pay bills
every 9 years!
… it’s not reasonable to be a shut in for those 6 years and being social costs money
every 10 years!
thundermoose@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Employees have to pay for basically everything in the US, so salaries have to be a lot higher here. School, childcare, healthcare, retirement, you name it. Also, all those things are more expensive here because they’re provided by companies that need to make a profit. It sucks.