vczf's recent activity
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Comment on The weight is not yours to carry in ~life
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Comment on Protest at Austin City Hall after not being allowed to speak [at hearing on surveillance cameras] in ~society
vczf Link ParentThanks for the link because I did miss it, and the video was interesting. Hmm and learned that Flock Safety is an Atlanta company, which explains the high camera presence in GA. I don’t think you...Thanks for the link because I did miss it, and the video was interesting. Hmm and learned that Flock Safety is an Atlanta company, which explains the high camera presence in GA.
I don’t think you should be so defeatist about it. Yes, it’s technical and invisible, but the end result of the camera tracking is basically the same as having a mandatory police app installed on your phone that reports your location to them directly. What if that app were to be updated so that it can log your conversations, associations, and what you do on your phone? That’s where we’re trending and future people need to rally against—and I don’t think that idea is hard to grasp. It’s not inevitable.
I’m frankly surprised at the 30-50 people who showed up at Austin City Hall. Even if you can activate 30 people in every city to take action and advocate against dragnet surveillance in local politics, that will make a difference.
There is definitely a place for guerilla-style disobedience. I remember some articles about special glasses that can interfere with facial recognition software.
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Comment on Protest at Austin City Hall after not being allowed to speak [at hearing on surveillance cameras] in ~society
vczf LinkWhen Louis Rossmann first posted about the Flock surveillance cameras, I was skeptical that the threat to privacy, autonomy, and freedom of association was greater than the benefits of having some...When Louis Rossmann first posted about the Flock surveillance cameras, I was skeptical that the threat to privacy, autonomy, and freedom of association was greater than the benefits of having some kind of road surveillance system accessible to the police. In the case of child abductions and missing persons cases, the police being able to efficiently locate and track vehicles in the crucial 24-hr period (including recent historical data) seems to be the greater good.
However, after watching the points of view presented by the protestors at Austin City Hall, I can unambiguously say that these cameras have got to go, everywhere in the United States. Not only are they ripe for abuse by law enforcement, immigration officers, and anybody who can get their hands on a login—the corporations themselves are a weak centralization point where a government can legally or illegally co-opt their nationwide surveillance network for unconstitutional oppression. Camera systems like Flock and LiveView Technologies have been shown to have incompetent security protections. At a systems level, nation-state actors like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran can certainly hack into these cameras to gain intelligence on military troop movements, equipment, etc. At a local level, small-time criminals can hack these cameras to scope out businesses and homes to target without needing to do the groundwork.
These camera systems are very expensive for taxpayers, and ineffective at addressing crime and homelessness overall. They normalize surveillance even further, and enable a police state dystopia.
When the Austin City Council became aware of the small protest that was going to show up to the hearing on the topic of renewing/installing camera systems in the parks, they postponed the hearing the morning of, even backdating the memo to appear from the previous day. They provided no reason or justification for doing so, and is most likely in bad-faith to bypass accountability. Apparently, companies like Flock have lawyers coach council-members on how to use crisis-management techniques and emergency hearings to push these systems through without the consent of the people.
I am horrified to learn that my state of Georgia has possibly the highest amount of Flock cameras in the country. You can see a crowdsourced map of Flock cameras at deflock.me.
My hope is to begin spreading some awareness of this issue. If your municipality is considering installing these cameras, please show up to the meetings and prevent your state from becoming like mine. Once they are installed, it is always harder to take them down. People are largely unaware that this intrusive surveillance network is being created. It is one thing for surveillance on private commercial and residential establishments, and another thing entirely for government to do it in a coordinated way.
Louis Rossmann will be organizing further activism in Austin, Texas for the next meeting on the park cameras in September. If you are in Austin, please help fight back against this. My hope is that a win in Austin will help the movement expand to other states and cities.
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Protest at Austin City Hall after not being allowed to speak [at hearing on surveillance cameras]
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentI am not using wealth in this context to mean "hoarded riches", but in the economics sense. The house I am living in, the tea I am drinking, the chair I am sitting in, and the near-magical piece...I am not using wealth in this context to mean "hoarded riches", but in the economics sense.
The house I am living in, the tea I am drinking, the chair I am sitting in, and the near-magical piece of technology I am using to post this reply is material wealth made possible (almost) entirely by the aligned cooperation of self-interested people throughout history into the modern day. That is how economies function and is the basis of civilization!
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentYou may have cracked the nut of the problem. Consider: In most cases, that person is the creator, and the money would be better off going directly to them. Most OSS are single-contributor...You may have cracked the nut of the problem.
Consider:
people who care the most about <thing> can figure out how to spend the money to make <thing> better
In most cases, that person is the creator, and the money would be better off going directly to them. Most OSS are single-contributor projects.
However, that doesn't mean representatives are a bad idea all the time. The largest OSS projects could certainly benefit from a representative system. At a certain scale, delegation becomes necessary–just like democracy! When OSS gets gridlocked, a better system for reallocating funding would make forking less costly.
There are some other situations where delegation can enable funding in creative ways, such as streams for categories like "Skyrim VR mods". However, those would function like foundations, and therefore there is no reason to bake a mandatory complex delegation system into the service. It would merely be another funding stream by a dedicated volunteer to raise and distribute funds.
Delegate competition shouldn't be baked internally into funding streams. To compete as a funding delegate, you'd start a new stream instead. Flatten the hiearchy and the system becomes transparent, while being straightforward and simple for the vast majority of single-dev OSS.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentYou aren't accounting for all the people toiling away in open source as essentially free labor, who get virtually nothing in return except complaints and GitHub issues. The delegate system makes...You aren't accounting for all the people toiling away in open source as essentially free labor, who get virtually nothing in return except complaints and GitHub issues. The delegate system makes possible funding streams for a "concept" rather than a specific creator and their project, so people can pool funding to support developers they may not even know, but would still benefit from their work.
Delegates should be super-users and highly-invested advocates for a software project, not some bureaucrat crawling out of the woodwork. I wouldn't let some random bureaucrat decide what to do with my open-source money.
Yes, it would be possible for this system to become over-financialized. That wouldn't happen unless contributors are apathetic. Unlikely, considering contributions are entirely voluntary!
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentI think it is the ethical choice. As I posted above, PrizeForge aligns self-interested actors to cooperate, including the company and founders. What is the real reason they should open-source?...But from what they're saying it sounds like they're all in on for-profit and want us to belive that's the ethical choice.
I think it is the ethical choice. As I posted above, PrizeForge aligns self-interested actors to cooperate, including the company and founders.
they're very clear, with more sketchy logic, that they won't be open sourcing
What is the real reason they should open-source?
What I can infer you want is openness and transparency. I think open data with a public API would satisfy that requirement far better than open source code, particularly for a finance platform that is vulnerable to being gamed by bad actors. Third-party security audits would also be good. Making backend code and database schemas available would be a liability.
Note that I appreciate your support for their goals, I agree with you in principle, and I'm glad you posted. It's an interesting idea even if their implementation has (maybe fatal) flaws.
Thanks. I really hope they manage to succeed with it, because otherwise I'm going to have to pick up the mantle myself in the future. I just don't have the time or the skill right now. I don't think I could do a better job myself, except maybe for the marketing.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentIt's better to build systems where sociopathic, self-interested actors, produce outcomes that create real value for others. This is the reason why capitalism works so effectively to generate...companies in the ethical consumption niche need to work harder and pay more to survive. I'm also skeptical that they can ever endure, but I don't want to apply that here because I very much believe in the spirit of what you're sharing here
It's better to build systems where sociopathic, self-interested actors, produce outcomes that create real value for others. This is the reason why capitalism works so effectively to generate wealth. (caveat: negative externalities like chemical dumping must be controlled out-of-band by other mechanisms, such as government regulation)
I think PrizeForge as a platform can do that... both for itself as a for-profit company, for all of the contributors (who want stuff for their money), for developers (who can code more if they didn't need a day-job), and even for moochers who don't pay anything at all for open-source. Nobody needs to be a selfless hero to make this system generate value for everybody. Everyone's self-interest becomes aligned financially.
Building an auth platform is not hard. It's also not easy. It's just one of those things that's largely solved patterns (as Tailscale also notes), so as long as you're hiring people with experience, it can be very reasonably done and managed.
I still think this is an unfair criticism of an early-stage product. I don't think it's the red flag you believe it is, and password auth is currently in development. I do appreciate the discussion, however.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentUnlike a Kickstarter, a matched enrollment funding stream would function more like Patreon. Rather than a lump sum payment where you can "take the money and run" after crossing a funding...Unlike a Kickstarter, a matched enrollment funding stream would function more like Patreon. Rather than a lump sum payment where you can "take the money and run" after crossing a funding threshold, the capital gets allocated in weekly disbursements. So if an OS dev fails to make enough progress to satisfy contributors, then the delegate can direct funding to a different developer entirely.
A failed Kickstarter destroys the entire crowdfunding initiative, and a competing Kickstarter wouldn't be able to capitalize on the momentum of the failed one, even though the demand was proven real by the scammers. A new Kickstarter campaign would have to rebuild the entire contributor base from scratch–considerably harder, especially because potential contributors would be rightfully jaded from being scammed.
The PrizeForge process would also not be all-or-nothing. Individual contributors are free to join and leave streams for different delegates and projects according to their perception of delivered value and their trust in delegates. If you think a delegate isn't transparent enough, or doesn't want the same features you want, you can simply change where your funds go. Your contributions, in theory, never have to pay for things you don't value.
In practice, you will have to pay some attention to what the delegates are doing. However, large contributors are going to watch delegates like a hawk, because they have a more significant stake. So I believe corruption and inefficiency can be rooted out relatively quickly via human social structures.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentI don't have much to lose here besides looking a fool. It's not a crypto project promising to make people rich if only they invest their life savings. It's an interesting and new way to crowdfund...I don't have much to lose here besides looking a fool. It's not a crypto project promising to make people rich if only they invest their life savings. It's an interesting and new way to crowdfund open-source and more.
I am already in the habit of using my money to vote for products and ideas I believe in. I've sent hundreds of dollars to GamersNexus in the last year in support of their excellent pro-consumer investigations. I jumped on a Kickstarter for VR treadmill shoes at the tune of over $1000.
I believe that a little money at the right time to the right people with the right idea can absolutely change the world for the better. You don't have to be a billionaire to effect change, you just have to be cognizant of the opportunities and willing to fight for them. It's not blind faith; it's tactical faith.
I've gotten burned before. I was a backer of ConsoleOS to the tune of ~$40 or so. When Psyonikus describes the accountability problem on platforms like Kickstarter, I understand that personally. There was basically nothing I can do to get my money back, even though the creator's identity was public. I'm not going to sue him for $40 he doesn't have anymore.
We have a cooperation problem. Why are we all complacent and willing to have value extracted from us? It's a hard problem that nobody has solved yet. The fundamental problem that PrizeForge addresses is very real. So real that the entire economy has revolved around it for the last 20 years, building the most valuable companies in the history of humanity. I believe their solution is worth trying, particularly when all you need to risk is a few dollars and looking naive.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentOn PrizeForge, there would be less friction for people to choose different delegates who may represent what they want better. The ad-hoc delegates you describe end up "locking in" the...On PrizeForge, there would be less friction for people to choose different delegates who may represent what they want better.
The ad-hoc delegates you describe end up "locking in" the contributors. This is also why non-profits end up with bloated expenses, because the network effect is strong and "regular" people with small contributions don't look that closely at how funds are used. There's little accountability when you can't switch delegates.
In representative crowdfunding, you'd have the possibility of multiple delegates that can collaborate together but also keep each other in check because they are in competition for funds.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link Parent"It's a cooperative crowdfunding model where your contributions are matched by others, so nobody pays an unfair amount, and the people who care the most about <thing> can figure out how to spend..."It's a cooperative crowdfunding model where your contributions are matched by others, so nobody pays an unfair amount, and the people who care the most about <thing> can figure out how to spend the money to make <thing> better."
It's their website that's convoluted and highly technical, not the core model. A lot of people are highly intelligent, but don't parse technical jargon. And they wouldn't even try in this case because the site is awful!
I think it's a marketing issue.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentFrom the perspective of somebody contributing $1, it's more motivating to contribute because your $1 unlocks a big contributor's dollar, making your $1 more like $2. This can happen over and over...I suppose they're trying to enforce a pyramidal distribution. I'm also not sure why this is supposed to change anything.
From the perspective of somebody contributing $1, it's more motivating to contribute because your $1 unlocks a big contributor's dollar, making your $1 more like $2. This can happen over and over again.
This matching works recursively down the matching levels following binary decomposition of enrollment amounts into power-of-two fragments. So every contributor can match at their amount or lower multiple times, but a groundswell of support is needed to unlock truly large contributions.
For the big contributor, it provides social validation of your support. Big contributors would also generally be the most passionate advocates who deeply care about the project, and want to get more people involved as users, so social reward is enough I think.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentI was this close to switching to emacs. The only reason I didn't was that the custom keyboard layout I finally was able to come up with was vim/kakoune friendly.I was this close to switching to emacs. The only reason I didn't was that the custom keyboard layout I finally was able to come up with was vim/kakoune friendly.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf (edited )Link ParentWell there's the connection. If they had done a better job of not looking crazy, I wouldn't have to be so defensive. It makes me look crazy. But I do genuinely believe they're on to something....Their FAQ for some reason also reads as somewhat preemptively defensive
I find it odd how preemptively defensive this post is
Well there's the connection. If they had done a better job of not looking crazy, I wouldn't have to be so defensive. It makes me look crazy. But I do genuinely believe they're on to something.
generally, their material is hard to understand, and unfortunately, I get some "scrappy web3/crypto startup" vibes from it all
None of my family understands it either. It may just be too complicated for most people to get right away, and the complete lack of credibility makes people tune it out.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf (edited )Link ParentYour objections are just as valid against representative democracy! There's no easy solution besides human social interaction, people talking to other people, building and ruining reputations....Your objections are just as valid against representative democracy! There's no easy solution besides human social interaction, people talking to other people, building and ruining reputations. Like society, it's "trust, but verify". Instead of using technology to replace human social structures, this platform offers a way to smooth it out and scale it up.
As a creator, why would I pick this website and deal with this quirk
This isn't meant as a platform for creators to choose. Creators having such power and ownership is one of the problems this platform is meant to solve! All of us are consumers of most things, most of the time.
Don't like how Firefox has changed? We're all held hostage by ultimately the lack of money to pay developers for the maintenance and features people actually want. If there was a passionate delegate who could point a firehose of money enough to hire some developers full-time, there isn't really a limit on the scale on the kind of open-source projects that could take off.
Want an alternative to Android and iOS? Don't look to VC funding or any existing big tech company. Even if such a thing could be made by a company, its eventual fate is to enshittify so that it can turn a profit.
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Comment on Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification in ~tech
vczf Link ParentWell, thanks for taking a look. I think I can provide some clarification on your points, but of course caveat emptor because this is not my company. Tailscale disagrees. I think I do too....Well, thanks for taking a look. I think I can provide some clarification on your points, but of course caveat emptor because this is not my company.
because auth really isn't that hard. You can find perfectly good auth systems already built in pretty much any language and building your own is really not difficult. Some quick searching will get you comprehensive information about vulnerabilities to avoid but if you don't have someone that already knows how to do it you're a long way from running a software company.
Tailscale disagrees. I think I do too. (Tailscale blog: Managing usernames and passwords in-house is so 2020)
Particularly for a functioning MVP (as in, can take Stripe payments), relying on SSO is the smart move. A hack at this stage would completely destroy any chance of the platform gaining credibility.
If they'd just chosen to be a for profit company I wouldn't have done a double take, it's the weird logic that gives me pause. A nonprofit or public benefit corp will get outcompeted. Why? Kickstarter outcompeted everyone in their niche.
Being a non-profit usually subjects you to reporting requirements and red tape. I think it's just way harder and would tie one's proverbial hands. I can start an LLC with $50 and an internet connection in 10 minutes, but certainly not a non-profit. (That Deimos started an actual Canadian non-profit for Tildes is legendary IMO.) Plus it's in South Korea? I have no idea what the regulatory environment is there, but I bet it's harder than in the USA.
The only way I can think of that a for profit would have an advantage in this space is by accepting angel or hedge fund money and chasing an IPO. Which would be the opposite of the ethos they're claiming.
I don't think it even matters if they sell out in the end. If the idea of representative crowdfunding attracts that much attention by big money, competitors will emerge. It's the idea that matters, not the specific company.
Representative democracy is to direct democracy as representative crowdfunding is to direct crowdfunding.
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Presenting... PrizeForge: a novel crowdfunding model for sustainable open-source and fighting enshittification
I need you to do me a favor: please keep an open mind and reserve judgement until after you've thoroughly digested the ideas I'm presenting here. These are not my ideas, and I have no connection...
I need you to do me a favor: please keep an open mind and reserve judgement until after you've thoroughly digested the ideas I'm presenting here. These are not my ideas, and I have no connection to this project. I hope to do them justice in representing them accurately and as clearly as I understand it all.
Please don't be dismissive. Please don't jump to conclusions. I would not be posting about this if I did not believe it has tremendous potential to reshape the digital economy, and therefore everything that governs how civilization progresses in the next century. Dramatic, much? Yes, but I hope I have your attention.
I'm not posting this as a plain link, because the website looks incredibly sus. Just trust me for a few minutes. Links are at the end.
(No generative AI was used to write this post.)
What is PrizeForge?
PrizeForge is a financial service that can be best thought of as "Representative Crowdfunding" (my term, not theirs). Like direct crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter), it lets people pool their money to support expensive projects that would otherwise be impossible to fund. Similar to Patreon, it can also be an effective tip jar for much smaller things that would otherwise go unrewarded.
The innovation is two-fold: first, contributors never move alone. As a contributor, you set a ceiling on your weekly payment. This is the "enrollment" amount. However, the actual amount of money disbursed each weekly cycle is the amount that is successfully "matched" with other contributors. In the simplest example, if I wanted to enroll for Tildes at $20/week, and one other user enrolled at $5/week, the disbursement would be the sum of the matched funds: $5 + $5. In this way, nobody ever pays an unfair proportion of the total, and small donations become an integral part of funding allocation. Additionally, like how philanthrophists often match charitable donations to meet a fundraising objective, matching provides a powerful incentive for individuals to contribute by making individual contributions feel more significant, since any money you part with can be doubled by another contributor. The more you put in, the more others will too. (PrizeForge calls this algorithm "Elastic Fund Matching". The full algorithm gets considerably more complex, but they have a neat visualization on their site and videos.)
Second, unlike existing crowdfunding and patronage systems, creators and companies do not receive fund disbursements directly. Rather, representatives ("Delegates") send the money to the people and organizations that should receive funds to deliver value to the stream's contributors.
"Won't delegates just siphon funds to themselves?" you ask. Well, yes, that will 100% happen at some point. Corruption is a human problem that can't be solved with technology alone. PrizeForge aims to provide mechanisms to allow the community to be very dynamic, so contributors can easily switch to a new representative—for any reason. Additionally, tools for transparency in how the money moves would go a long way in keeping delegates accountable.
In the context of open-source software, delegates should be experienced power users who are well equipped to evaluate features and bugfixes, and then can award the prizes to developers according to their best judgement.
The use of a representative has many advantages over direct crowdfunding. Someone highly invested in a software product has valuable experience and would be more effective at setting priorities for features and bugfixes. An experienced and trusted delegate would save developers time having to parse the requests (...demands?) of individual users who may not be able to articulate what they really want. Also, if a developer or company stops doing what people want (providing value to the people who care), then funds can flow to competing alternatives in a very granular and dynamic way, as the delegates shift funding and/or new delegates arise.
If we could pick a delegate here for Tildes, would anybody really object to @cfabbro?
These trusted delegates already exist, everywhere! We just haven't been able to cooperate in the right ways to delegate our individual power, so they can truly move the needle on funding the projects we care about. PrizeForge is, I believe, the first truly sustainable funding model for community-owned and directed open-source.
Addendum
Watch this video first! Before you get scared away by the terrible scammy-looking website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO46oEdlkY8
The FAQ: https://prizeforge.com/faq
The company's github page: https://github.com/positron-solutions
Looks like just two people, with Psionikus doing all the promotion and running accounts. The company is incorporated in South Korea. They've got a bunch of emacs tooling, and I believe the PrizeForge concept originated out of a desire to improve the funding/development process of emacs, then the lem editor. They also apparently have a bit of beef with the FSF due to emacs politcs. Check out the last FAQ for a fun easter egg.
The sub-reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/PrizeForge/
The Hacker News comment that took me down the rabbithole: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45036360
Bonus thoughts:
- What's really crazy is that this is not a crypto or blockchain project. You can do a simplified version of the elastic fund matching with just money, pen & paper.
- This financing scheme is basically an idealized utopian voluntary tax system. I can imagine a granular delegate system being extremely effective at making politics incredibly boring. Imagine electing a local representative only to have potholes fixed in your area, using only the funds earmarked for fixing potholes. It would be so much simpler to keep them accountable. Either the roads are crap or they aren't! Where's the money, bub?! Why've you got a fancy new lawnmower?! I want my $2 back!
- If this reaches critical mass, it ends surveillance capitalism and digital feudalism. I don't want to live in Black Mirror, and this seems like the way out of that future.
- I would really love it if we can establish a funding stream for Tildes. I know I can donate to Tildes directly, but it would be a great test run to help PrizeForge get operational and build credibility. I only need one other crazy person. Isn't the internet great? (My credit card has not been stolen btw)
- The password login is still in development, so you have to login via Google SSO. I absolutely hate using Google SSO but I get it from a developer perspective. Proper auth is hard and companies like Tailscale took the same path and still don't support password login. (My google hasn't been hacked either fwiw)
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Comment on User-friendly and privacy-friendly LLM experience? in ~comp
vczf LinkThe best front end currently available IMO is Msty: https://msty.app/ It’s like an IDE for LLMs.The best front end currently available IMO is Msty: https://msty.app/
It’s like an IDE for LLMs.
Also, it’s ok to lose a battle. As long as you don’t lose what you believe in, you haven’t lost yet.