The main reason is that I strongly believe that we need to move away from server-centric software for social media and to start working on a local-first application that can browse the social web "natively". I wrote a series of blog posts explaining the shortcomings of current AP server software, and how the current architecture will not be enough to achieve mainstream.
I've already developed a generic ActivityPub Server and I recently started exploring the client side as well.
I think the model is perfectly valid, so much so that I am also providing a similar service to serve this same niche. I just wanted to point out this in case someone comes to me and say "you are charging $14/month for GoToSocial, this is so much more than $COMPETITOR". Yes, my base price is higher but I do not put any limits on the database and even my lowest capacity plans have a very generous soft-limit 100GB media storage.
Well, sure, that's the usual tactic: hook users into your platform and then after they already invested the time to get things set up, make them pay.
I really hope these strategies don't become the norm. The amount of people who are willing to pay for hosting is still quite small, I don't want to have to take Communick into some race to the bottom to compete for these customers.
Also, they do charge for media storage. So, even if you are not paying for the instance you may find yourself paying a significant bill because you follow a bunch of media-heavy accounts.
No, I don't think he is sleazy or have ill-intentions. I think he genuinely wants to do good things.
The problem it's just that he lacks focus and he worries more about feeling validated than dealing with the daily grind of continuously improving his product. As soon as any of his projects start getting a minimal amount of interest and people start depending on what he has promised, he finds himself some "new" project to be busy with. At the same time, he still feels possessive about his creations, so it's hard for him to just delegate away any significant part of the system.
I hope that the successful kickstarter makes him realize that shit got real and that he already got the validation that he was seeking, and that the money is enough to get him surrounded by good people who are a bit more focused on "proper" project management.
There was a reason given, but it smells of bovine excrement: https://mastodon.social/@dansup/114041543384358354.
Well established only relatively to the others.
This is the crucial part you seem unwilling to accept. You don't want to go to LW because of centralization, but you still have to resort to number 2 just to be able to maybe get enough support from the others
Meanwhile, this dinky little instance keeps slowly but steadily growing and outliving everyone else.
I don't know what you mean by "server setup of yours", but I'm glad to help. :)