@Gargron A US based 501(c)3 lets you accept US donations that are tax deductible. It doesn't grant any magic powers to Americans, or tech companies, or even Silicon Valley.
Being able to accept donations from US citizens in a tax deductible way, gives Mastodon more chance of surviving without needing to resort to VC driven commercialization, or block chain schemes. This is a good thing.
I get that people are (rightfully!) suspicious of any change, especially those that involve boards.
I say it's okay for people to be suspicious, because if the changes are good, they will see that.
Folks are starting to see what I saw pretty soon after joining this place... that the fediverse wins in the end, in part because the fediverse is so resilient.
It's resilient against the specific competitive threats of centralization and VC funded customer acquisition schemes. It's really quite amazing. I literally said, "😮Holy sh*t... they're going to win!" when I first saw it.
@mekkaokereke@Gargron Yep, VCs have actually been on the Fediverse for awhile, some running huge servers, and they haven’t yet neutralized the mission of the Fediverse.
@mekkaokereke@Gargron People having a negative reaction seems like such a disingenuous take. So many other projects are 503(c)s (Node, Apache, Rust, Python, LINUX, etc), nobody seems to have a problem with those. But social networks having already been proven to be susceptible hostile takeovers by malicious billionaires, this is the one that people object to?
I do not buy for a second that people are objecting in good faith.
@mekkaokereke@Gargron@tchambers
Maybe describing it as a sort of money laundering thing will make it more palatable to people who think too much. Make a donation—and one to your instance admin—and participate in a minor (very minor) tax loophole, just like the x-illionaires do. Srsly, donate. The more you give the bigger your tax benefit. It’s arithmetic.
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