this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Watched Louis Rossman today, and he's part of the team behind a new app for watching online video content - not just youtube, but nebula, peertube, twitch and more.

adblock already integrated, works amazingly with a quick test on my end - it's an app in the Lemmy spirit

(it's got a paid model similar to winrar, you don't have to pay - but they do want you to - opensource and all)

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[–] lemann@lemmy.one 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

However, I'm worried about what Rossmann says in regards to profit and maintenance. The app is moderated/worked-on by (I think paid) professionals and we should pay a license of $9.99 yet the app is also unprofitable and may never turn a profit. So, what's the point in paying for the app?

By paying for the app, you're merely donating to FUTO. As Rossmann mentioned in his video, it is completely optional to pay.

There's nothing wrong with any app being unprofitable IMO. Public transport and car infrastructure is unprofitable and we don't have a problem with those... heck even my personal website is unprofitable, that's about $200-300 a year being funnelled into something nobody uses or visits.

Rossmann has a millionaire backing up his repair business

This is incorrect

Rossmann's personal repair business is financially independent from his employer, FUTO, who only partially sponsors Rossmann's R2R advocacy with the assistance of community donations. Rossmann frequently publishes hour long videos on his main channel crawling through the finances, and has spreadsheets online for public viewing where viewers can do an audit themselves

So, is some of this being funded by that person and other investors of FUTO or is our money the only thing keeping this afloat

AFAICT, FUTO is comparable to organisations like NLNET - the same people at sponsor the Lemmy devs. The aim is generally not to fund projects forever, but to eventually open source them after they've been developed to the agreed level of functionality. Seeing as this app is mainly a Rossmann initiative there could be an exception here though - such as Rossmann donating his own money towards development.

The app is niche and I can't see too many people paying for a license

I'm probably an exception then lol

Spoiler

I also can't see too many workers staying unless they are passionate. Something isn't adding up unless I'm wrong.

A lot of people who follow Rossmann are passionate about R2R, actually owning what you pay for, and not giving excessive control to monopolies like Google.

Grayjay is more along the lines of this spirit, and as soon as they have their DHT video hosting thing ready I'll gladly donate some of my storage space towards it 👌

[–] owlboy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So Rossmann is a lobbyist for an activist billionaire?

I think right to repair is important btw. Not questioning that.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yep. And a right libertarian. I stopped watching him when he went from repair content to months long complaining about taxes and talking up Florida and Texas as some great place. Honestly, I am 100% convinced that the only reason he even cares about right to repair is for his work. He has shown no signs of caring about anyone else other than himself in any of the dozens of hours of content I watched of his.

I’m so glad I trained under Jessa at iPad Rehab instead of taking his course.

[–] owlboy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

He’s always felt off to me. And it’s not just because I’m into Apple products. I find it hard to articulate. But I see I’m not alone, thanks for sharing.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah I was in the industry when he got big, and it was hard not to love his anger towards Apple, but eventually it became apparent he was just an angry person and Apple was only his current target. Once he had secured his platform, he felt more comfortable to share his absurd views, and I fear he influenced many impressionable people towards the right with his rhetoric. Dude is not who I want representing the repair community.

[–] ram@bookwormstory.social 1 points 1 year ago

the only reason he even cares about right to repair is for his work

This is exactly it. I appreciate that he's a strong advocate for it, and he's a single issue voter/lobbyist, but he really wouldn't care about it if it wasn't his business. As can be seen in how, while he so strongly believes in a right for third parties to maintain hardware, he very clearly doesn't believe in a right for third parties to maintain software with this app being source-available and not FLOSS.