Why do many bitcoiners still trust fiat software?
50 comments \ @ad 14 Aug 2023 bitcoinAD
We have all bought into using free and open source software for our money...but we still use gmail or zoom or dropbox or mailchimp or slack. What's up with that? Is it actually tough to run software well over time? to keep the data backed up? to keep the software up-to-date? to ward off the threats on the internet?
Federated Computer's FOSS-as-a-service provides Nextcloud, Jitsi, Element/Matrix, Baserow, Vaultwarden, Gitea, Wordpress, Castopod, Wireguard, Listmonk, email server, spam protection, backup/restore, 100% private, protected. All this for $39/month per domain.
If you have stacked 50,000 sats on Stacker News, we'll give you free service. No cost.
Find out more: https://www.federated.computer/stackernews/
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147 sats \ 5 replies \ @siggy47 14 Aug 2023
So this company is basically giving most of us the chance to try its product for one year for free, and we're all shredding the guy? This is like marketing by fire. The old "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" thing?
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @nullama 14 Aug 2023
Yes.
I don't like to add dependencies that will soon make me pay for it. It's basically similar to what big companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc do all the time. Try it for for free for a bit, and then when you get used to it, and you depend on the service, they start charging you.
No thanks.
I mean, OP doesn't want you to run your own servers, he just wants you to pay them instead of big tech:
we still use gmail or zoom or dropbox or mailchimp or slack. What's up with that?
As in, "just pay to me instead"
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @federatedcomputer 14 Aug 2023
If you don't like the Federated Service, because it is all open source (Nextcloud, Jitsi, Element, Matrix, Vaultwarden, Wireguard, Caddy, etc etc et) you can move to another open source provider...even yourself.
There is a cost for running a server. Your time (how do you value that?) or the service from another provider, etc.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 14 Aug 2023
I certainly agree that the costs are justified. I'm interested now that you mention that the individual services are all movable to your own server. No downside, really.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 14 Aug 2023
Valid point. I'm right on the brink of doing the Start9 thing myself. As @DarthCoin mentioned, running your own server is not for everyone. I'm still researching my options. My big fear, of course is equipment failure. I have run a NAS for years with redundancy without a problem, so I'm not too worried.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @federatedcomputer 14 Aug 2023
You're eligible for free service, @siggy47 ;)
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1474 sats \ 5 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 14 Aug 2023
checks profile to see how many sats I’ve stacked
Almost!
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1000 sats \ 2 replies \ @Oialt 14 Aug 2023
That’s all I got man! Good luck!
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 14 Aug 2023
Wow, Thank you! Not necessary at all
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Oialt 14 Aug 2023
Glad to see you made it. Haha
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @federatedcomputer 14 Aug 2023
You're now eligible for service! :)
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @WeAreAllSatoshi 14 Aug 2023
Stackers are so generous!
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30 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 14 Aug 2023
great idea to add in the deal for those who have stacked lots of sats on SN.
i imagine all sorts of brands will do something similar in the future to target “pro” users of apps and services with their promotion.
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49 sats \ 13 replies \ @mudbloodvonfrei 14 Aug 2023
$39/month? Sounds like fiat to me..
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139 sats \ 4 replies \ @davidpaulyoung 14 Aug 2023
You can pay with bitcoin. :)
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3 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 14 Aug 2023
so why is priced in usd?
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidpaulyoung 14 Aug 2023
That's the world we live in.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 14 Aug 2023
The title of the post literally says: why do many bitcoiners still trust the fiat software.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 14 Aug 2023
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1 sat \ 7 replies \ @DarthCoin 14 Aug 2023
It says "FOSS" that means free open source software, but is charging 39 bucks/mo... right. Is really free.
I am not saying that is bad idea/service. Not at all. Not every user is capable to self host all those services, even if they use some of those bundle nodes like Umbrel. Is not that easy for many people.
I myself I self host all those service in dedicated machines, for myself, my own domains, for free c(only paying the domains and electricity. But that doesn't mean everybody can do it.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @shibe 14 Aug 2023
As they say in FOSS, Free as in Freedom != Free as in free beer.
Being FOSS doesn't mean you can't charge to use it.
Also yeah, I don't think everybody can setup their own server and they probably shouldn't unless they understand how to secure it properly. I feel anxious even having a public ssh instance running even though you can only login to it with an ssh key + password
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @demitasse 14 Aug 2023
there is nothing wrong with making a profit on FOSS. that is what the freedom part of foss means, the freedom to use the software/code how you see fit, even if that means profiting off of it
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @nemo 14 Aug 2023
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2 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 14 Aug 2023
Yes, but at least don't say is FOSS, is only OSS...
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @nullama 14 Aug 2023
Yeah, English is not great to describe that concept. Spanish is better:
Libre is a better concept for Free.
Gratis would be the Free you are referring to.
Open Source is Libre, but not necessarily Gratis.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidpaulyoung 14 Aug 2023
It's FOSS. The F refers to the software, not the hardware/network/power.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @demitasse 14 Aug 2023
free as in freedom not as in free beer
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11 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 14 Aug 2023
Sooo you tell me not to use fiat but you go and recommend me to use a service that charge me in dollars... Right. Very good fiat mindset.
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92 sats \ 1 reply \ @davidpaulyoung 14 Aug 2023
You can pay in bitcoin. :)
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 14 Aug 2023
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @BBitcoinUSA 14 Aug 2023
Don't trust them, forced into using them. As an independent contractor, if my clients use Zoom for weekly update calls, what can I do. Yes I do attempt to indoctrinate them with my line of thinking, but at the end of the day they sign my paychecks. I'm all ears.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @metamik 17 Aug 2023
Does it include 'calendar'? Hard to switch from Gmail without the whole suite: calendar, drive, meets
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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @03365d6a53 14 Aug 2023
It seems a bit disingenuous to harp on about 'FOSS-as-a-service' when Federated Computer itself is not FOSS (the linked github organisation has no public repos).
Cloudron by comparison is $15 a month for unlimited domains, and you can run on your own machines
https://www.cloudron.io/
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @rocky_hodl 14 Aug 2023
cloudron is $15 paid annually or $30 monthly but there's no email hosting only clients like roundcube. it's more like umbrel in the cloud which makes federated a great deal with email/data hosting and sso.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @03365d6a53 15 Aug 2023
That's completely untrue, there is a fully-fledged built in email server, with catch all, works for all your domains, you can configure group access to mailboxes, etc etc
You won't see it on the list of apps because it's not an app, it's core functionality and you will find it under the main system menu
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @federatedcomputer 15 Aug 2023
It's up to the user to configure. If the user doesn't configure the domain correctly, email doesn't work. That's not the way Federated works. Everything works from the very beginning without the user having to configure anything. Different approaches. Different types of customers.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @03365d6a53 15 Aug 2023
Actually no, you just give them your cloudflare API token and all the configuration is done for you.
It's not like setting up a custom domain on, say, protonmail where you have to set DMARC records etc
You just "add domain" then click "new mailbox".
Anyways - I would like to change tack and offer you guys some encouragement, I like what you are doing (encouraging the move away from centralised big tech), and $39 isn't actually that bad when you consider the cost and hassle of hosting, I just think you should be a bit more honest and straightforward in your marketing that's all.
Claims like "free for stackers" (actually, just one year), "FOSS-as-a-service" (but the service isn't FOSS) and "100% private" (when this part cannot be verified, and ultimately still runs on servers you control) are misleading at best.
The service honestly sounds good just don't sell it as (or make it sound like) something it isn't, that's literally my only beef anyway.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @federatedcomputer 14 Aug 2023
Cloudron is a great service. It's like Umbrel (another great service) in the cloud.
Confused, however, about the github point. Does Cloudron open source it's software? Or just the open source packages it offers?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @03365d6a53 15 Aug 2023
Cloudron is not open source, but it is source available - https://git.cloudron.io/cloudron
They also support many of the open source packages they rely on:
https://www.cloudron.io/opensource.html
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @patrick1 14 Aug 2023
Urbit is also an option.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @demitasse 14 Aug 2023
a lot of bitcoiners are larpers. look at nvk for example and his foss larp
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullama 14 Aug 2023
If you have stacked 50,000 sats on Stacker News, we'll give you free service. No cost.
Misleading. It's only for a limited time:
Only for twelve months
It's still a nice $468 giveaway, but it assumes you would continue using the service at $39/month after the first year as most people would get used to using it.
And funnily enough, OP service is charged in fiat while complaining about users trusting fiat in this topic.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @federatedcomputer 14 Aug 2023
You can pay in bitcoin.
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32 sats \ 5 replies \ @nemo 14 Aug 2023
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145 sats \ 2 replies \ @davidpaulyoung 14 Aug 2023
Here's how I see the word "fiat" with re: software. Comes from Saifedean Ammous. "Fiat software" is software where you can't move your data to another provider of the solution. You can't move from Google Workplace to Google Workplace "by Oracle", for example. But you can move from Nextcloud from vendor A to Nextcloud from vendor B. It just so happens that there is a high overlap between non-fiat software and opensource. But this doesn't have to be the case.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rijndael 14 Aug 2023
Fiat means by decree. You’re just using the term fiat to market to bitcoiners
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 14 Aug 2023
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2 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 14 Aug 2023
I thought the same thing. This is the first SN ad experiment. Federated did not create the account.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nemo 14 Aug 2023
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @rijndael 14 Aug 2023
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