Cohost is shutting down at the end of 2024

[TheFrugalGamer]

I'm not on Cohost, and I know a lot of people here have said that they don't use Cohost, but I thought it might still be worthwhile to post this up here and let everyone know. It looks like the small development staff is experiencing some serious burnout, and feels they can't handle it anymore. While I do think it's sad to see it go, it seems like they're handling it really gracefully and giving users ample time, tools, and notice to archive their data.

Here's the news post about it, along with instructions for those who want to yoink their details:
https://cohost.org/staff/post/7611443-cohost-to-shut-down

Thoughts, feelings? I think it's inevitable that we'll see social experiments fail from time to time. I don't expect them to last forever, and I'm mostly just glad that people are trying. I think it also highlights why open software and data are so important, and why it's important to control your own info.

[Bede]

I'm sad to see the site go, really. But, between a staff member publicly bragging about Cloudflare forgetting to bill them, staff paying themselves 94k USD a year per person, and not accepting volunteers, I saw this coming from miles away years ago. I've been a vocal critic of how the site has done nothing in terms of feature implementation to make itself sustainable, and it seems like the second shoe finally just dropped.

[BlazingCobaltX]

It's unfortunate but I am not surprised. If a giant like Tumblr is consistently unprofitable, a smaller site would have had way less of a chance. There was maybe a chance for Cohost to be profitable if Tumblr had been nuked already, but to this day Cohost is an alternative that was "just there". What this experiment proves maybe is that this type of blogging, with all the backdoor management required to make it run, is unsustainable by default.

staff paying themselves 94k USD a year per person

I have not followed much of the new surrounding Cohost, but this seems inconsistent with them saying it's "never been profitable". Do you have more information on this?

[garystu]

I got banned for being mean about them closing lol. You'd think they wouldn't care any more, but tbf i was being a cunt so I'll cop it.


Anyway, the site's shutdown was very predictable and inevitable. I'm kind of glad this is how things went down, there were worse ways this could have ended.

Its nonsense the site is blaming payment processors, as those didn't have any major changes in their terms of use for the whole duration of cohost. It was obvious their monitization pathways wouldn't work out, and the payment processor terms preventing their plans were already in place before cohost was ever dreamed of.

I don't believe the team ever got 90k dollars each. I just don't think they ever got that salary. I do think its notable how the staff were making themselves out to be not for profit, when legally they were a normal LLC.

[Bede]

I have not followed much of the new surrounding Cohost, but this seems inconsistent with them saying it's "never been profitable". Do you have more information on this?

I don't believe the team ever got 90k dollars each. I just don't think they ever got that salary.

It comes from this blog post.

"this means pay is now $94,616 for all employees."

They continuously gave themselves significant raises, in the face of significant loses each month, while talking about how hard it is for them financially. It gives real "someone who is good at the economy help me my family is dying" vibes.

There's also this interview, consisting of them just bragging about all the expensive stuff they own. Call me crazy, but reading an interview where the CEO talks about her $1200 desk chair and other $300 chair that holds their $400 controller that's pretty good (but could be better) didn't exactly help with my sympathy towards staff.

[BlazingCobaltX]

It comes from this blog post.

They continuously gave themselves significant raises, in the face of significant loses each month, while talking about how hard it is for them financially. It gives real "someone who is good at the economy help me my family is dying" vibes.

There's also this interview, consisting of them just bragging about all the expensive stuff they own. Call me crazy, but reading an interview where the CEO talks about her $1200 desk chair and other $300 chair that holds their $400 controller that's pretty good (but could be better) didn't exactly help with my sympathy towards staff.

...As I'm reading this I realise I suck at churning numbers when it's about dollars, so I'm not really grasping how disproportionate the pay was. It is a bit funny to pay yourself a big salary when those funds could go to growing the service until it's long-term sustainable. At the same time, I don't think it's bad for people to demand a livable salary for the work they do. Like I said, with USD I don't really have a grasp of how outlandish this situation was, but I believe you (although Uses This is meant for people to show off their shiny things). This sentence is hysterical to me, though:

we made around $5300 in may, meaning we only lost $41k. ideally, we would like to lose less money.

Funnily, this happening finally pushed me to become a Neocities supporter. In the vein of putting your money where your mouth is: I like the service, it does what I want it to do, and I would hate to see it go down over lack of funds. Thanks Cohost for dying I guess?

[TheFrugalGamer]

I have not followed much of the new surrounding Cohost, but this seems inconsistent with them saying it's "never been profitable". Do you have more information on this?

Yeah the numbers work out when you look at the link @Bede posted, though I had to stare at them a bit before figuring them out. I know there are a lot of bad feelings around the management decisions the team made, but personally I kind of commend them for prioritizing paying their employees first and foremost. I'm sure the plan wasn't perfect, but people should always be prioritized over things. Should they have made some pay cuts to keep the service running longer? I'm kind of torn on that, actually. I don't know.

The issue of sites/services like these not being profitable is an issue that people are talking a lot about right now. The "traditional" model has been to supplement the income with ads and corporate sponsorship, but that comes with a lot of compromises towards privacy and drives the site towards enshittification. How do we set these sorts of sites up for the long term and build them for users instead of against them? I wish I had an answer, but I don't think there's one really good solution yet. That's why I usually encourage these sorts of experiments, in hopes that we'll come up with something better eventually.

[bugholder's epiphany]

as someone who loved using cohost despite some of the issues, it's rather sad honestly. Best i've seen cohost described by my friends is that it's a social media site you WANTED to go to as opposed to ones where they forced you to have to be on or suffer. IT was nice, it was actually good to not think about numbers and engagement and just kinda, exist happily.

Even if it was inevitible, it still kinda proved to me that you could have a social media that didn't suck, and all i can hope is that someone else tries to do what cohost did someday.

[arcus]

If anyone is looking for something similar, I recommend Dreamwidth for long form posts, and Goblin and Wafrn for something similar to Tumblr. Goblin is run by a former Wordpress and Tumblr developer, while Wafrn's dev has been very active adding new features fairly often.

The issue of sites/services like these not being profitable is an issue that people are talking a lot about right now. The "traditional" model has been to supplement the income with ads and corporate sponsorship, but that comes with a lot of compromises towards privacy and drives the site towards enshittification.

Is the issue here there's no way to make a livable income off running a social media site, or that it's not financially viable for a site to stay afloat without the compromises you listed?

If you are talking about centralised social media sites specifically: Dreamwidth, Archive of Our Own, Neocities, and various Booru sites have been around for years. Cohost's failing is not a good example that social media sites are inherently doomed when many things went wrong with the site.

How do we set these sorts of sites up for the long term and build them for users instead of against them?

Four things:

• Use open source software (with a decent license,) to assist with transparency and vulnerabilities. If a site enshittifies or shuts down, someone else can take the source code, spin up their own copy, and improve on it. This is what Dreamwidth did with Livejournal's source code.
• Decentralisation, to help with scaling and server costs. Yes, this can lead to drama, but if it does, then there was going to be major issues in the community regardless.
• Have export and import settings, so everyone owns their own stuff, and can freely move between sites.
• Somewhat decent management with clear values. No going back on forth on what's allowed or not allowed on a site, when that can have major legal ramifications for other people.

You don't need all four, but you do need the last one bare minimum.

I do think its notable how the staff were making themselves out to be not for profit, when legally they were a normal LLC.

It was a non-profit, just not in the way they claimed.

[FE1NT]

the beginning of cohost's end is actually what pushed me to register here. i know the site had its issues, but it was still nice to have a decentralized space that didn't emphasize numbers or popularity or what-have-you. i supported the site monetarily because i believed in what it could be, and while yeah, it sucks it didn't last long, i think it's successful in that it shows an open space like cohost can exist and be successful in some way.

websites are temporary. eggbug is forever.

 

[garystu]

If we're recommending similar sites, literally just use Tumblr. Tumblr has like a billion problems, yeah, but everything in context. I left Tumblr for a few years before slowly slinking back, it feels like such a bummer, I know.

Is Pillowfort open for registrations yet? I have like a shit ton of invite codes built up. I'll drop ten now, but if none of these work, DM me and I'll send you one. Or a few. Ask for a few, for your mates, if you want.

Pillowfort Codes

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=xuw6A1fgZTQupEors8dcjA

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=johhPD348WURF6CxcNZXrA

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=qy6biOo2IKgDKesWaEh0bg

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=8r47w5xjaPSzwlSB0huQpg

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=IWRQvLHIyVIudpi7KxpH6g

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=PR9hy87zqLRx_-2Dmc9lig

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=_U17LBWVxrbM2KQaXLoyYg

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=Bmi5xOmnMtVqP1x5H7ri8Q

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=u7sJuZRrT0w0fPbuQbRQug

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=JFXfj_CenpMAvHpibvFhlg

[close]

It comes from this blog post.

I should have been clearer. I do believe they stated their salaries, and those were the goal, but I don't believe they ever earned enough money to fufill the payment of 90k they owed themselves.

I'm not being nice, I think they pissed a lot of "improving the site" money up the wall.

It was a non-profit, just not in the way they claimed.

[Grimlock]

honestly its very funny to see people giving themselves raises while working on a social media site (thing known to lose money). i do understand demanding a living wage but with running a social media site you should be very aware of the limited well you are pulling from moneywise. Unfortunately it seems you either sacrifice the site or the people with running them :-(

it is a bit of a shame though, it was a perfectly fine site despite the way i did not enjoy using it. mostly due to multitasking on the site being a nightmare, tabs you make active again refreshing every time you switched blogs even on innocuous pages like the tos one, was certainly a choice given how it was clearly capitalizing on side accounts as a feature like tumblr's sideblogs.

[bugholder's epiphany]

honestly its very funny to see people giving themselves raises while working on a social media site (thing known to lose money). i do understand demanding a living wage but with running a social media site you should be very aware of the limited well you are pulling from moneywise. Unfortunately it seems you either sacrifice the site or the people with running them :-(

Apparently the person who originally funded Cohost had spoke about the funding.

https://cohost.org/xn--hs8h/post/7077034-oh-hey-it-looks-li

On a personal opinion, Cohost is running in a country (The USA) where you have to pay an arm and a leg to even get a house, and then you pay insane bills on that, and then you have to pay for insurance, a car, living expenses, fuel for the car, food, etc, etc...

Can't even go to the store anymore to buy like a small amount of food without it costing 100 dollars.

They were making what, 80k?

The national median for living comfortably alone is $89,461.

Ntm living alone can be even more expensive.

Living in the US sucks.

In all honesty, I doubt it would matter much different if they didn't give themselves raises. The money cost was a pain in the ass for them, expenses were increasing, and losing Stripe just before they could implement the biggest thing on the site that would've helped them out financially fucked them over hard. They were already having to take compromises with how to earn money with Cohost to begin with, given the whole deal of not wanting to exploit users or force them to use the site, or to sell their data to companies. They were committed to the ethics of it more than anything.

[Bede]

... and losing Stripe just before they could implement the biggest thing on the site that would've helped them out financially fucked them over hard.

Okay, the Stripe thing is probably what confused me about all of this the most. I don't think that Stripe has had any recent policy changes (though I could be wrong about this). Besides, was using another payment processor not an option?

[halcybutton]

i've got mixed feelings. it's a shame many people who found a home there now have to find another alternative, but on the other hand, the management of the site had a lot of issues (that others have already mentioned). it was inevitable as far as i'm concerned, after reading up on everything i could find. i'm glad the staff is giving users a chance to archive their posts and process the shutdown at least, but i can't say i have a lot of sympathy for the owners.