Slowcore HQ

Devotional polytheist living a monastic lifestyle centered on curiosity, simplicity, and joy.  Exploring the intersection of technology and spirituality.

We (admins @thecurioushermit and I) are putting the /slowcore-hq channel into extended hibernation. 

We haven't lost interest in the FC-seeded slowcore movement. To the contrary: we think it’s much-needed! 

However, the Farconomy doesn't have economic models to sustainably fund ongoing maintenance efforts for channels. 

Some projects have made inroads in the right direction. But without realistic prospects of adequate compensation to cover basic costs for responsible channel stewardship, we'll struggle with moderator attrition and burnout. (We apologize for the backlog of pending membership requests).

The channel deserves better.

It doesn’t seem fair or responsible to ask others to take over the channel under these conditions either, since channels are not a priority for WC.

Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to turn /slowcore-hq into a sustainable cozy corner. 

For now, thanks for your camaraderie, fellow sloth people. We appreciate you.

Keep moving slow and preserving things. 🐢 🐌

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

Thanks for your work. Really enjoyed this channel!

Have you considered just asking people to pay you what they feel. Maybe via hypersub or patreon?

father, underbiker / retrogrouch, paleolithic percussionist, painter of tiny men | product design /fabric

These are tough problems! Glad you're thinking about them.

I think business models that rely primarily or exclusively on revenues from fans voluntarily supporting an individual writer (or even groups of writers) through subscriptions or crowdfunding campaigns are unlikely to be sustainable long-term. Most of those who make it work are receiving some sort of subsidy elsewhere, but that reality is often concealed.

One limiting factor is human labor. For most writers, I'm not convinced that the long-term returns will ever be sufficient to justify taking on the side-hustle labor (e.g., design, marketing, audience-building, and admin support for the crowdfund or subscription as a thing in itself) on top of creative work. Some do pull it off, but at what cost?

So should we publish deep dives "free" and monetize elsewhere? That's an open question I think about often, especially with the proliferation of AI. Here's an article I'm thinking about a lot lately:

https://www.combinationsmag.com/post-cognitive-income/

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestion. 

We considered crowdfunding but decided against it. We aren't convinced that it would be a long-term sustainable way to fund a small cozy corner channel that prefers to stay small. 

We've bootstrapped and self-subsidized the channel out of pocket for almost a year in the hopes that we'd eventually find a sustainable (non-extractive) economic model to support it. But our "runway" has come to an end, so that forced our hand.

For more of the thought process, see this thread.

building /cabin, advising /clanker and /farcon | grin.io

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestion. 

We considered crowdfunding but decided against it. We aren't convinced that it would be a long-term sustainable way to fund a small cozy corner channel that prefers to stay small. 

We've bootstrapped and self-subsidized the channel out of pocket for almost a year in the hopes that we'd eventually find a sustainable (non-extractive) economic model to support it. But our "runway" has come to an end, so that forced our hand.

For more of the thought process, see this thread.

https://warpcast.com/danicaswanson/0xc294f6a5