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When it was free, growth was fast and constant. Teams used us daily for months, sometimes a year, leaving feedback and spreading love. But the moment billing kicked in, many vanished overnight. Even companies with 30+ users preferred something clunky and unsupported over paying the cost of 2–3 cappuccinos.

In the Bitcoin/nostr world, almost none of the software is paid software. Lightning wallets and ecash mints may not need to charge because they can charge for liquidity or ecash tokens <> sats exchange, but on chain wallets, node software, nostr clients, and many other projects are free.

Should some of them charge?

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302 sats \ 5 replies \ @justin_shocknet 7h

Should some of them charge?

The incentives around Bitcoin software really does need more discussion, we touched this a few weeks ago: #1088687

Until it's solved we'll keep getting scam wallets outnumbering good tools overwhelmingly

It's part of the Core/Knots problem too, for all the fighting it's Jack's money vs. Jack's money... Core particularly is pretty much all NGO funded, and Knots being supportive of covenants indicates its going the same way... fake L2's with a swap-fee business model are dictating almost all development priorities.

Tragedy of the commons.

159 sats \ 2 replies \ @BlokchainB 7h

Great point! I often feel like Jack is the main billionaire moving the needle from a capital standpoint.

Blockstream and Tether have capital but it appears they only serve their own interests

666 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 7h

Alex Marcos/Chaincode are another such example, at least as far as Core is concerned. Everyone serves their own interest, to the extent they align with broader interest is incidental.

It's the entities we don't know about, operating from behind cover, that are even more of a vulnerability. Blockstream has raised what hundreds of millions, billions? Where did that come from and who pulls the board strings? At what point does Tether's shareholders interest start to deviate from the Bitcoin commoner? Also easy to make the case that Blockstream is a Tether subsidiary, many Bitcoin companies are, in effect.

People gave Saylor shit for being against funding development, but I don't think they heard what he was actually saying. The only way to discourage activist development is to discourage active development.

That's what's so magical about proof-of-work consensus, the only resistance Bitcoin has against human organization is human disorganization... but that doesn't obviate vigilance as enough resources and time can still change the walking meat that ultimately gives Bitcoin value.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 39m

I want to question whether building a generosity/patronage model of software development is good for Bitcoin.

There are a lot of good projects out there, maintained to very high standards. There should be a way that the people who do that work can make revenue.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 40m

I wonder if the "people don't like to pay for software" phenomenon is the same as tragedy of the commons.

I remember being all too willing to pay for software when I was a kid (the day I bought Warcraft 2 was one of the best days of my childhood, closely followed by Command and Conquer Red Alert, Civ III, and Unreal Tournament).

Since adulthood, I really haven't paid for any software. Everything I use is free. People just magically do the work of maintaining it for me -- which seems completely unsustainable.

I can see how some of the big projects like ubuntu are able to make a business out of support, or maybe a SAAS model, but smaller software projects seem to mostly be hoping for an acquisition (this is my ignorant outsider's view).

I wonder if it is a little like writing. There is so much writing out there, it is not necessary for people to pay for it much anymore. The solution for writers seems to be a patronage model or getting hired by a company to garner attention for them or to build some following which they can monetize.

The big difference that I see between writing and open source software is that software needs to be maintained. Writing is more like fire and forget. I suppose writers need to maintain their audiences...

Whatever the case, I would love to see more conversation about how Bitcoin ecosystem projects can make more money and be sustainable.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 1m

Unreal Tournament

If I had a sat for each second spent in Facing Worlds...

My whole thesis on it is that only business software and entertainment software is monetizable... Business because you can embed yourself into leverage building processes such that things become indispensable... Ubuntu is monetized through services to business whom have invested in other processes built on top of it, they aren't paying Canonical in their mind, they're maintaining their own infrastructure.

Games vary in monetized dynamics, but even that had to evolve with online-ness since cracked torrents and CD burners became a big problem.

Bitcoin software doesn't really have either of those levers because the whole point of using Bitcoin is that you don't need the license key or credentials for the game / SaaS / Professional Services.

We see so many companies doing custody and swaps because that covers literally every (the majority) user that are indifferent to those non-monetizable properties.

This might best explain a lot of my views on Bitcoin software generally,

That Core should be treated like Enterprise or SCADA software... non-breaking above all and infrequently updated because the surface is minimal.
That the Lightning shell is the highest leverage point from which to push on overall adoption, Circular-MoE, and self-custodial use. That's all in one place because it's where people can actually treat Bitcoin (and Bitcoin software) as part of their revenues.

Note how that Lightning.Video, ShockWallet with its Nostr Offers and Lightning.Pub Dashboard, all using Sanctum to manage identity in organizational settings, are a stack of tools a business could build and scale revenue.

178 sats \ 7 replies \ @ek 8h

How can you charge for FOSS that you are meant to run yourself (bitcoin wallets), so you also can’t provide it as a service since then it becomes custodial?

Edit: Or mhh, you can pay for Alby Hub as SaaS or a lightning node on Voltage, but I still don’t understand how these lightning nodes can be considered self-custodial. How do I know they don’t have access to it? Isn’t it literally running on their servers?

157 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 7h

Zeus also is charging somewhat, even that we could consider it more as a V4V contribution:

LSP leasing / renew fees for channels
LSP fees
wrapped invoices fees
routing fees
subscription for extra services fees
merchandising
newly automated split payments with a % you wish to donate directly for each payment. I think this model is not bad and users can sustain directly the maintaining of the app with their own fair price.

sorry for the shity image, I had to make it from another stupid phone

If the services offered are done well it could sustain the cost of maintaining the app.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 34m

I think LIghtning wallets may have a solution to this problem via all kinds of things. It's definitely more clear how a LIghtning wallet will make money as compared to an onchain wallet.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 7h

Yeah I pay for Alby hub

86 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 7h

Mhh, maybe it comes down to that my phoenixd node on my linode is then also not self-custodial because it’s running in a datacenter and I don’t know if Akamai does not have some backdoor access

213 sats \ 1 reply \ @justin_shocknet 7h

Yea someone else's computer is inherently trustodial.

I know Voltage put in a lot of work to have custodial deniability in the form of a professional SaaS offering, having LND keys made client-side, encrypted at rest etc... but none of that can solve for the fact that you're unencrypted wallet is running in their memory.

A VPS or Dedi with a reputable host is still the best option in many cases for Lightning, a company like Akamai hosts far more valuable workloads for enterprises... tens and maybe hundreds billions of dollars in value in aggregate... trillions if you consider losses from operational downtime for the major infrastructure they're a cog in (think Bulk Electric Systems).

Their reputation is worth far more than the sum of all Lightning nodes on their infrastructure.

Same can be said though of most hardware one might use to self-host, pretty much everything has a backdoor "management engine" so in both cases you're just reliant on those vendors/the NSA from opening Pandora's box.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 33m

easier maybe to hide in the masses though. using Bitcoin specific services and products makes you more of a target in my mind. and is more likely to have backdoors cracked open.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby OP 35m

I am no FOSS expert, but I think a project could sell the binaries as downloads on their website and still make the source code available via a github or something. You don't have to produce binaries for people to be FOSS (I don't think).

I wouldn't mind seeing a world where wallet projects charge by release, say something like 5000 sats to download the latest version's binaries. If you want to compile from source, you can do that, but if you want it nice and easy pay for the release.

You don't necessarily have to upgrade if you're running a prior release (although the problem becomes vulnerabilities...) and maybe the project makes old binaries available for free. I haven't thought this model through well enough, but the idea would be that it almost becomes like a subscription, except the users are paying per each new release and maybe there is a little signal when users buy a new release because they want access to new features that the devs are working on.

302 sats \ 0 replies \ @Entrep 10h

This is one of the hardest and most important lessons in building a product. You didn't have 30+ users per company; you had 30+ people enjoying a free tool. A user and a customer are two different things.

102 sats \ 0 replies \ @carter 6h

This is one of my favorite talks I tell freelancers to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

67 sats \ 0 replies \ @jbschirtzinger 7h

The business world has become vampiric when it comes to charity.

46 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 12h

Maybe they could charge for some services, but I think the basic features should stay free. I don't think we're at a point yet where you can charge for the basics, it'd just slow down adoption.

My biggest lesson? Charge early.